THOH: Firestarter
by UndeadSamurai01
Summary: In this parody of Steven King's 'Firestarter' Lisa discovers that she has pyrokinesis. Halloween multi-chapter.
1. Chapter 1

**Ok, so I know this is a little late, but it's taking a bit longer to write than I wanted it to - on the plus side it's now twice as long as I planned.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the Simpsons, Matt Groaning and Fox do. Blah, blah, blah. This is not for commercial purposes, I do not give permission for anyone else to use it for commercial purposes without appropriate permissions from fox. I give permission for anyone to use this for non-commercial purposes, feel free to edit, remix or post this anywhere, so long as you give me credit.**

**Disclaimer 2: This story also draws heavily from the Steven King novel 'Firestarter', though it does so in a satirical fashion which I consider to be fair use. Whatever, please don't sue me.**

Chapter 1

Lisa awoke to the terrifying sight of flames swirling all around her, the stench of burning fabric filled her nostrils, choking her. She screamed. Her room was on fire! Down the hall she could hear the smoke alarm beeping, nearly drowned out by the fierce crackling of the flames. She rolled off her bed, crawling on the floor to stay under the smoke. Her eyes were burning, she hacked and coughed, trying desperately to clear the smoke from her lungs, but she kept crawling forward – if she stopped now, she would die.

She reached the hallway and found that it too was on fire. She kept crawling. Reaching the stairs, she tried to stand, but found she was too light headed from the lack of oxygen, so she descended the stairs sitting down, one at a time. She could see the front door in front of her, silhouetted in the thick haze of smoke. She was almost out. She stood up shakily and stumbled towards it. Just then a huge gout of flames shot out of the wall, blocking her path – the flames were tinted blue, one of the gas lines must have blown.

Tears leaked from her smoke-tortured eyes, cutting twin paths through the soot on her face. She was going to die. She couldn't go on. Outside the door she could hear Marge screaming her name.

"I'm sorry." she whispered, before closing her eyes and running into the flames.

She kept running, out the door and into the arms of a very surprised fireman, who promptly wrapped her in a fire-proof blanket. Extinguishing the flames. The blanket felt coarse and stifling, but she could do nothing about it, it felt as though her whole body had turned to jelly. The fireman pulled the blanket off her face to check whether she was breathing, and she could see Marge, wide eyed in shock and relief, leaning on another fireman, who no doubt moments ago, had prevented her from running back into the burning building. She tilted her head slightly, Homer was there too, and Bart, who was holding Maggie. Thank god, she thought, they all got out ok. All she wanted to do now was pass out, which she did, promptly.

When she awoke minutes later there was an oxygen mask over her face, she could breath a lot easier now, but her lungs still burned. She glanced around and realised she was in the back of an ambulance. She could hear voices outside.

"…It's the damnedest thing, she ran straight through the flames," she heard one say "her clothes were incinerated, but she's not burned at all."

"Well, I guess sometimes people get lucky" shrugged another

"Look, I've seen lucky and this ain't it, this is a strait-up miracle" he shot back "hell, not even her hair is singed – how do you explain that?"

"A whole flock of angels must be looking out for her." said the second, only half joking.

Marge's unmistakable blue hair revealed itself outside the back door.

"Mom!" cried Lisa, tugging the mask off her face.

Marge stepped up into the ambulance and sat down beside her, Lisa sat up and hugged her, oxygen mask dangling around her neck.

"It's ok, I'm here. Oh, keep that on sweetie" said Marge, gently slipping the mask back on before returning the hug.

"How's she doing?" she called out to the paramedics outside

"Surprisingly well, considering she just ran through fire," replied the paramedic "As far as we can tell, she wasn't burned at all, though the smoke inhalation was pretty bad. She's gonna be fine Ms Simpson, but you should keep an eye on her for the next 24 hours or so, just to be on the safe side."

"Oh, thank god," she said to Lisa "I thought I'd lost you."

-x-

Twenty minutes later the firemen had finally extinguished the blaze, but the damage was done. The house that had seen them through two hurricanes, a nuclear apocalypse, floods, fires and countless zombie attacks was little more than a blackened husk.

"Well, we're about done here," said the fire chief "from the looks of things the fire started near the centre of your daughter's bedroom."

"Lisa!" exclaimed Marge "How many times have I told you not to use candles in your bedroom?"

"But mom, I wasn't –" began Lisa

The words caught in her throat, she was pretty sure that she hadn't had a candle, but how else could you explain it? It was all her fault, she could have killed her whole family, and just so she could read some stupid book by candle light. Tears welled in her eyes

"I'm sorry!" she sobbed "I'm so sorry, I don't know –"

She broke down into tears. Homer picked her up and hugged her.

"Oh honey, it's alright," he consoled "accidents happen. The important thing is that no-one was hurt. Besides, it's not the first time we've burned down the house, it fact the firemen said if we have one more fire this month, we get one free."

Lisa couldn't help but chuckle at that.

"Daaad," she giggled, drying her eyes, "he was joking!"

"Are you sure?" asked Homer, scratching his head in mock confusion "cause he wasn't laughing…"

"Yes!" she said, breaking into a smile.

Homer smiled back, he might not be the best father in the world, but at least he could cheer up his daughter.

-x-

The next week Lisa was at school. She had tried to put the fire out of her mind, but one aspect still really bugged her. She honestly couldn't remember lighting any candles. Maybe she shouldn't have admitted blame so easily, what if it was an electrical fault? What if the firelighters were wrong about the point of ignition? What if…

There was no use in playing 'what if', what was done was done. What really bothered her was that she couldn't remember. She felt like she was losing her mind, ever since the accident she had started getting headaches that felt as if her brain were on fire, and at least twice she had woken in the night, terrified that the house would be on fire again.

Troubling as these symptoms were, she supposed they were to be expected. She didn't trouble anyone with them; they were her burden to bear.

Deep in thought she had unknowingly stumbled into the section of corridor where Francine and her gang hung out. Lisa's eyes widened in fear as she spotted her leaning against a locker, Francine's narrowed.

"Hey nerd" asked Francine menacingly "what'a you think you're doing here?"

"I'm sorry," squeaked Lisa, cowering instinctively "I'm going."

Francine stuck out her arm, blocking Lisa's path, and making a booming sound as it smacked into the locker. Lisa winced at the sound – she could feel another fire headache coming.

"You're not leaving before the lesson are you?" mocked Francine "'Cause we're going to teach you one."

All her cronies laughed, as if she had just made a great joke. Lisa could feel their laughter piercing into her skull, her brain felt like it was on fire, as if it could melt and drain out of her ears. She clamped her hands over her ears, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up" she wimpered

"What did you say?" asked Francine, imitating a posh teacher "such language cannot be tolerated, I'm going to have to throw the book at you!"

And she did just that, selecting a particularly heavy history textbook, she hurled it right at Lisa's face.

Lisa saw the book coming, her eyes focused on it and all the sudden the book burst into flames, disintegrating to ash in mid air. Lisa blinked in surprise, her headache had subsided somewhat, as if the heat from her head had somehow transferred itself into the book.

The bullies were more than surprised, their eyes practically bugged out of their sockets.

But she wasn't finished yet, her head still burned, she had to get the heat out. A row of lockers melted into slag and the floor started to bubble. An aura of flame surrounded her, but she did not burn. The bullies were long gone, run off to wherever they could hide. A drinking fountain burst off the wall and a stream of water shot outwards. Lisa focused her heat into it and if flashed to steam.

Cool off, she thought, cool off. And then it was over. The heat was finally gone from her mind. Siting cross-legged on the floor she surveyed the utter destruction, everything within 20 meters/yards of her was utterly destroyed. In a circular pattern radiating out from where she now sat. The whole area was shrouded in steam, further down the hall on each side the sprinkler system had activated, but not above her; the intense heat had fused them shut. How could she explain this? She couldn't, no-one could. It was utterly inexplicable. Yet somehow it had happened.

Principle Skinner and a group of teachers came running around the corner fire extinguishers in hand, to find only Lisa.

"Lisa!" asked Skinner "What happened here?"

"Uhhh…" said Lisa, shell-shocked " well I did, I guess."

"You set fire to the school?" he asked incredulous

"Uh, yeah" said Lisa, looking around, still not quite believing it "I guess I did…"

"Um, well…" said Skinner "Detention?"

-x-

Lisa sat in detention, surrounded by the very kids who had previously tormented her. This time however they all gave her a wide berth. As if she were a bomb that could go off at any time. Which she supposed was fair enough, given that she had just slagged a hallway full of lockers with her mind. Suddenly the classroom door was blown off its hinges, all the windows shattered simultaneously and the room started filling with teargas. Three fully armoured commandos burst through the windows and were joined by three more who rushed through the doorway.

They were clad head to toe in matte black body armour, they wore full face helmets with gold tinted visors, ultra-bright headlamps, and integrated gas masks. The helmet attached to the neck of the armour with an airlock seal. Most carried submachine guns, P90's if she could remember from her brother's war movies, but some, inexplicably, sported crossbows, one even carried a rune inscripted broadsword. A patch on their right shoulders depicted a crossed out dragon with the letters PSA-1, on their left shoulder was an American flag patch.

"Lisa Simpson. You're coming with us." one of them said, his voice amplified over some speakers in the helmet.

"Am I under arrest?" asked Lisa "what's the charge?"

"If you resist," continued the voice "you will be taken by force."

"Hey, I'm talking to you!" yelled Lisa "who the hell are you?"

One of them grabbed Lisa's shoulder, turned her around and handcuffed her. Lisa could feel the heat within her mind. More controlled this time. She released the heat into the cuffs expecting them to melt, but they didn't. She cranked up the heat further, singeing the paper on a nearby table, she kept cranking it up, smelling ozone as the air surrounding them ionized.

"Don't bother" said one of the commandos female this time "Those cuffs are carbon nano-tube re-enforced tungsten carbide, you could drop them into a volcano."

"You can't do this!" yelled Lisa "You can't just arrest someone without charge! It's unconstitutional!"

"Actually according to the Patriot Act, we can arrest anyone for no reason whatsoever." said the first commando

Lisa moved the focus of her heat onto one of the commandos. His body was engulfed in flame.

"The suits are flameproof" said the flaming commando calmly "further resistance will result in force, you have three seconds to comply."

The commando holstered his crossbow and a tazer popped out of his armour gauntlet, he raised his arm to point it at Lisa.

"one, two, thr…"

"Hey! You can't Taze an eight year old!" cried Lisa

"Patriot Act" said the commando as he fired

-x-

Lisa was still semi-conscious as she was dragged through the school halls. Other students had their faces pressed up against the glass to see the decidedly strange sight of a young girl being, essentially, kidnapped by six heavily armed commandos.

When they got outside there were several dozen more soldiers, though they were less exotic in their armour and weapons. On their shoulders they carried similar patches though these had numbers from 2 - 6 on them.

Outside, there were an array of vehicles, some looked similar to swat vans, while others were more similar to striker armoured personnel carriers, there was even a Black Hawk helicopter. Lisa was surprised when the vehicle they dragged her towards was not military at all, but a fairly average looking stretch limousine. They pushed her inside and closed the door. The limo immediately started moving and the other vehicles moving to escort it.

Lisa was still recovering from the effects of being tazed, but she managed to look around, and she saw that she was not alone. Across from her sat a fairly old man – in his sixties if she had to guess.

"Hello Lisa," said the Man "I'm director Allen"

"Who, are you guys?" said Lisa, slurring her speech, she felt as though the air was syrup

"We're the Paranormal Security Agency," he answered "we're responsible for protecting the United States against supernatural threats."

Lisa processed this information for a second.

"You mean, there are others?" she said "Like me?"

"Well, no actually." he replied

"What, you mean no …er fire controllers?" she asked

"We call it pyrokinesis." said Allen "But no, you're the first paranormal we've ever seen."

Lisa thought it over.

"That makes no sense!" she exclaimed "If I'm the first how can there be an entire agency devoted to this?"

The director sighed.

"Well, we were created by president Truman in 1952 on a drunken bet, and if you know anything about politics you'll know that it's impossible to cut any kind of security or military spending without looking soft on terrorism. That's why there's more 1271 intelligence and security agencies right now. That we know of! They're finding more every day."

"Lucky me" said Lisa sarcastically "so what's with the crossbows?"

"They're to fend off vampires" said the director

"But vampires aren't real!" protested Lisa

"Oh great, a lesson in what's real from the little girl who can start fires with her mind." replied the director sarcastically

"Hey, I may be pyrokinetic, and a girl," said Lisa "but that doesn't make my opinions any less valid, now how did you find me?"

The air in the car had started to become hotter, the air conditioner howling in protest, and the director dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief.

"An update to your school record flagged in one of our surveillance servers." he said "It's our job you know."

"Those are supposed to be confidential, that's illegal!" she yelled

"Not according to the Patriot Ac-" he began

"If I hear one more person say 'Patriot Act' I swear I'm going to fry them!" yelled Lisa "Why am I being held, and keep in mind what will happen if you use the 'P' word."

"You mean 'Patriot'?" he asked, in answer his handkerchief burned into ash, shocking him, but leaving his hand unharmed, "You are being held for study by the PSA, until such a time as you are deemed to no longer be a threat to these United States."

Lisa didn't see the director's hand moving towards his watch. He pressed a button on the watch's face and a transparent barrier suddenly slid down into place between them. A white gas started flowing out of the vents on her side, it tasted slightly cold and had a vaguely metallic odour. Even the one breath she had taken made her head swim. Knockout gas! She realised. She held her breath and tried to burn her way out, but once again they were one step ahead, the car was flameproof. Her lungs ached as she pounded on the glass. The director watched impassively. Eventually she was forced to take a breath, her head spun and her arms felt like they were filled with lead. Her eyes closed and she slumped to the floor unconscious.


	2. Chapter 2

**Ok so I know I said this was going to be two parter, but that's not going to happen - likely this will be a four of five chapter story. Oh well, enjoy and please R/R.**

Lisa drifted just below the threshold of consciousness – she could hear voices and see blurred images and the end of a kind of tunnel. A man in a white coat walked into her vision.

"Jesus, she's barely breathing," he gasped, his voice sounding soft and far away "what were you thinking giving that kind of dose to a child?"

The man blurred as he moved leaving a trail across her vision. She started to drift off again closing her eyes when she felt a prick in her arm.

"…een what she can do," said a female voice "…e couldn't take any chances."

The images started to come into focus, and Lisa blinked and tried to speak, succeeding only in letting out a low moaning sound.

"Wait I think she's coming out of it." said the male

"Damnit, knock her out again," ordered the female, Lisa thought she might be military "we're not equipped for this."

Lisa tilted her head and saw that she was now hooked up to an IV, she thought about trying to rip it out, but her arms were still to heavy.

"She's a child – we can't just keep drugging her whenever we feel like it!" said the Doctor "She's barely recovered fro-"

"n-noo" Lisa moaned

"She's waking up!" yelled the female "Damnit Johnson, either you put her out or I will."

She pulled her sidearm and pointed it at Lisa's head. Lisa's eyes widened in horror as she stared down the cold black barrel. A purple liquid was injected into her IV bag and moments later she felt consciousness once again slipping from her grasp.

-x-

When Lisa regained consciousness for the second – or was it the third time? She had lost track. She felt groggy, but definitely awake this time – she noticed that she was lying in a four poster double bed, looking around the room she saw that it was nicely decorated in an old-fashioned style. There was a small television, a desk with a new laptop and an ensuite bathroom. The curtains were drawn, but she could see it was light outside. What on Earth was she doing here?

Her memories came flooding back – her pyrokinesis, the PSA, the knockout gas… but that did nothing to explain where she was now. Which made her wonder if it was all a dream…

She got out of bed, realising that she was now wearing a nightgown – meaning that someone had changed her clothes while she slept. She felt degraded, how dare they! She walked over to the window and opened the curtains. Her heart sank. In the window frame was, not a window, but plate metal and some florescent light tubes. The metal was unpainted; too silvery to be steel, not silvery enough to be silver, and too shiny to be aluminium. She sighed. Tungsten carbide. It wasn't a dream. She knocked on it with her fist experimentally, and a deep 'thunk' testified to its thickness.

"Ah," said a voice "I see you're awake."

Lisa spun around, but saw no-one. She did however catch a blinking red light. A camera.

"That's right," the voice continued "we're always watching."

Lisa looked around and saw several more cameras. No doubt they had been carefully arranged to leave no blind spots.

"Do you remember why you're here?" asked the voice

"Yeah, pretty much," admitted Lisa groggily "but I get a little hazy around the part where you can arrest me for something I haven't done yet."

"You are being held indefinitely by the PSA under suspicions of terrorism as set out in section twelve b of the Patriot act-" the voice read out in a monotone

One of the walls burst into flames, before a white, freezing cold gas shot out from strategic vents in the ceiling dowsing the flames almost instantly.

"Yes, that's why." said the voice "By now you will have realised that escape is impossible. Co-operate with us and we'll make sure you're comfortable. If not, just remember, we have accommodations which are far less… pleasant."

-x-

They gave her a couple hours to digest that information before there was a knock at her door.

"Err, my I come in?" said a man on the other side of the door, strangely tentative.

"Sure," said Lisa as disdainfully as she could "it's not like I have any choice in the matter."

The door opened, moving much more slowly and smoothly than it ought to, indicating that despite it's wooden façade it was very heavy and no doubt made of metal. A man with thick glasses and a lab coat stepped into the room, flanked by too guards who carried P90's and wore silver firesuits similar to those worn by vulcanologists. Outside the door she could see a small metal room, which she suspected worked as an airlock, ensuring she couldn't overpower the guards and escape. Fat chance, she thought, eyeing the guards as they took up positions on either side of the door.

The scientist walked over to her.

"It's so great to finally get to meet you!" he gushed "isn't it great? We can find out what caused your abilities – this is a great day for science!"

Lisa was taken aback at this man's overbearing enthusiasm. No, it wasn't 'Great'.

"A Great day?" yelled Lisa "did I hear you correctly?, you said this was 'a Great day for science'? Oh, I'm sure, when they look back in the history books that everyone will remember the 'Great day' when scientists kidnapped a child and experimented on her. It makes me sick that you even call yourself a scientist when you have absolutely no ethical integrity. You're a sociopathic, opportunistic vulture, come to benefit from the evil deeds of others – "

Each sentence was punctuated by Lisa poking him in the chest with her finger, the scientist had retreated until his back was up against the wall. The guards had their guns levelled at her and she couldn't see their faces through their visors, which was quite unnerving. Perhaps most frightening of all though, Lisa's eyes _literally_ looked like they had flames in them.

"w-what?" whimpered the scientist, utterly unprepared "kidnapped?"

Lisa's gaze softened somewhat.

"You didn't know?" she asked, probing

He nodded.

"These 'soldiers'," explained Lisa, gesturing at the guards disdainfully "tear gassed a class of primary school students, shot me with a Tazer, accused me of terrorism, then kept me drugged for god knows how long, until I woke up a couple hours ago. I have no idea where I am, how long I've been here, or even what exactly you people want with me. So you'll excuse me if I don't share your enthusiasm for 'science'."

The scientist looked confused, clearly this was not what he had been expecting.

"Well I'm sorry," he said "but it I had no part in all this, I just want to help you."

Lisa weighed it over in her mind. He could be telling the truth – she wanted to believe it, and she really needed someone on her side about now. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. For now.

"Alright then. What time is it?" she asked "what day?"

"Uh," he glanced at his watch "it's 9:30am, Thursday the 15th"

Three days then, she thought to herself, her family must be worried sick.

"Can you send a message to my family?" she demanded "What have they been told? Are they OK?"

"Um," he stalled "no, I can't do that, I don't know and I don't know."

"Why!" she yelled "You said you wanted to help me!"

He gestured at the guards. Lisa exhaled slowly, fighting a lump in her throat. She couldn't really expect him to do things that might very well get him shot, but she could pump him for information. She would start at the beginning.

"Alright, where are we?" she pressed, "Who are you?"

"Well," he she started "I don't think I can tell you where we are…"

He looked over at the guards questioningly, but they remained motionless.

"And as for me…" he continued "well I can't tell you much about that either, but I think I can tell you that I'm a bio-medical researcher, and I've worked on a few other top secret projects."

Lisa was about to ask his name when she saw he was wearing an ID badge with his name on it. His name was John Tolman. The badge was the size of a credit card, but one end was covered in metal contact pins. A smart card - to control access no doubt. That didn't really help her right now, but she stored the information away for future reference.

"John," she asked finally, laying a hand on his arm and looking up at him pleadingly "can you get me out of here?"

She hoped that by using his name, she could humanize the situation. Nonetheless she held out little hope. John looked at her, then looked away, ashamed. He inhaled sharply as he walked out of the room.

"I'm sorry." he muttered, almost inaudibly

The guards followed, closing the door. There was a click as it locked, and once again she was all alone.

-x-

Lisa paced back and fourth. It was torture, not having any reference for time. She had checked the laptop and the TV, but neither of them had a clock or any kind of link to the outside. The TV only played DVD's, and there were none. The lights in the 'windows' stayed constant. It could have been hours, or mere minutes. She had tried counting the seconds, but after a couple thousand she had given that up. After a while she swallowed her pride and even tried yelling at the cameras. There was no response, and to make matters worse, she was starting to get a fire headache. For a while entertained the idea of torching the room, but she decided against it. She might be fireproof, but she still needed oxygen, and the room looked to be air-tight.

She tried to imagine how her family would feel. Did they think she was dead? Or had they been fed some cock and bull story about where she was? Or perhaps they had been told nothing at all – surely this would be the cruellest fate, constantly wondering what had happened, where she was, or if she was dead or alive. She missed them all, even Bart. At least if he were here right now she would have someone to talk to.

Oh, if Bart only knew about her power. He'd want her to become a superhero, just like in his comics. He would be so jealous, but as far as she was concerned he could have it. Pyrokinesis was more trouble than it was worth.

If Marge were here she would tell her that everything was going to be ok, even though she knew it wouldn't be. Before she was irritated that Marge had tried to shelter her from the world. She was eight now, and she could handle it… Or so she had thought. Now she wanted nothing more than to be safe at home, curled up on the couch, blissfully ignorant of the dark machinations of her own government.

If Homer were here he would protect her. He mightn't be the best father all the time, but she had never questioned the fact that he loved her, unconditionally. Even when they had fought, even when Homer did things that were stupid and insensitive and made her cry, even when she hadn't been the best daughter, he was still her father, and he would do anything for her. Even if that meant taking a bullet.

She was alone.

Eventually she decided to go to bed. As she got into the bed the lights dimmed, whether by coincidence or by design, she did not know. She was very tired and she fell asleep in just a couple of minutes. In her dreams she was a dragon, and she breathed fire down onto her enemies.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: This chapter is very long, perhaps too long, 3500 words, but it starts and ends where I wanted it to. Maybe some parts could do with less detail, but I let you all be they judge of that.**

**Chapter 3**

At Springfield Elementary everything was, mostly, back to normal. No one had seen Bart or Lisa, since the day she was abducted. Despite being almost invisible while she was there, the nature of her disappearance made her the main topic of discussion around the lunch tables.

"Poor Lisa," said Janie "who'd a thought she'd be the one to get arrested"

"Yeah, I always thought it would be her no-good brother." Said another girl

"Well she shouldn't have downloaded that Alaska Nebraska CD." Accused Sherri

"Internet piracy is a crime!" Continued Terri

"That doesn't really make sense," said the other girl "that's what they told us, but I heard the police officers were carrying crossbows."

"Maybe she's a vampire!" gasped Janie

"I heard they had flamethrowers." Said Terri

"No stupid," scolded Sherri "Lisa brought the flamethrower – even ask Francine!"

"I still say she's a vampire," said Janie stubbornly "it explains why she's so smart, she must be like 400 years old or something!"

"Yeah," said the other girl "and she avoids sunlight too – always hiding in the library, that must be it!"

-x-

Lisa awoke once again to the smell of burning fabric and sight of swirling flames, a klaxon was blaring and the freezing white gas was streaming from the roof. Within seconds the fire was out. The sheets on the bed were barely burned at all; obviously they had some kind of fire retardant property. Lisa began to cry. Maybe she belonged here afterall, at least if she was here, she couldn't hurt anyone. Her family wouldn't be safe around her anymore.

She wasn't tired, but she didn't get out of bed, she just lay there and stared at the ceiling. What was the point? She wondered to herself, what was the point of anything anymore? She may as well lie there forever. She was never going to see her family again; the PSA was never going to let her go! She gasped and cried bitterly, curling up into a ball. She just wanted everything to go away! Why were they doing this to her?

-x-

After an hour or so she did get out of bed and, despite the cameras, she took a shower. She didn't care what they saw anymore. When she got out of the shower she felt a little better.

Then there was John. Could he be trusted? She wondered, he seemed nice enough, would he really help her escape? No, she couldn't count on that – but she could trust him, at least not to lie to her.

She went to the dresser and took out some new clothes. She picked out a red t-shirt and a pair of jeans; they fit perfectly.

"Hey you!" she snapped at the camera "don't you feed your prisoners around here? I'm hungry."

"Have you considered our offer?" asked the voice

"Yeah, yeah," said Lisa, smiling ever so slightly "I'll do co-operate, for king and for country right?"

"We don't have a king," said the voice, changing its tone ever so slightly "we have a president."

"Oh right, 'cause a king would be someone who has absolute power of life and death over all his subjects…" said Lisa, sarcastically "oh wait, Patriot Act!"

She realised it was a futile gesture, but the small act of defiance felt good. For its part the voice ignored her.

"As for meals, there's one on its way." Said the voice

"Oh, and I'm a vegetarian" said Lisa

"We know," said the voice "we seized your computer and backtracked your web access – according to the NSA you were already a person of interest, so the records were quite extensive."

"No way!" gasped Lisa "why would the NSA be interested in me?"

"It turns out you have regular web contact with the First Lady of the United States" said the voice "-something about a gardening blog?"

Lisa, thought back FLOTUS1! She had even met her in person once, though surprisingly no one talked about it much.

"That's right!" said Lisa "and when she realises I've stopped posting she's going to know something's wrong! You're going to be in big trouble."

The voice laughed.

"I think you overestimate the transparency of the intelligence agencies," said the voice "the president doesn't even know how many intelligence agencies there are, let alone who's holding who. I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for that rescue."

Lisa sighed – it had been worth a shot anyway. She was probably going to be here for a long time. Which made her wonder – what time was it anyway? They seemed to have deliberately not given her a clock…

"What meal is this anyway?" she asked, probing

"Why does it matter?" asked the voice, evenly "you've just woken up, so why don't we call this breakfast?"

Yeah, thanks a lot, she thought glumly.

-x-

Minutes later there was a knock at her door.

"Enter!" called Lisa; she still didn't know why they bothered.

She was surprised, though truth be told slightly relieved, that the person carrying her breakfast was in fact John. She liked him, she decided – he had an honest face, and let's face it she had a lot more in common with the scientist than the ever-present but faceless guards, who had accompanied him.

"John!" she exclaimed, smiling, "what'd you do to get busted down to kitchen duty?"

John returned the smile, setting down the tray on her desk.

"Well, it's good to see you're feeling better, and no," he chuckled "I'm not in trouble – I have to take you out for you're tests after this, so I figured I may as well bring you lunch."

"Lunch huh?" she inquired

John looked puzzled for a second before

"Ah," he said, "they're trying to keep you disoriented. It's quite a common interrogation technique actually. You have to stay strong for me though ok?"

"Um, ok." said Lisa

She found his behaviour quite odd, but then again he was a bit of an odd person wasn't he? And he was being nice to her at least. That was something. She finished her meal, and John picked up the tray.

"Right," he said "time to get going, follow me, and whatever you do, don't wander off – I don't want to see you getting yourself shot."

Geeze, that's a comforting thought, thought Lisa. Scared as she was to discover what these 'tests' entailed, she felt an inexplicable sense of excitement to finally get to leave the room. She followed John closely, into the airlock. The guards followed them and closed the door to her room. Lisa felt anxious with the four of them inside the small metal room together, and worried about what she would find behind the outer door. John inserted his keycard into the reader and the LED above it flashed green. John saw her worried look, and took pity on her.

"I can hold your hand," he said, "if you like."

Lisa hesitated for a second, before taking his hand. It felt strange to hold the hand of an adult who wasn't her parent, but at the same time it was somehow comforting. She nodded, and he opened the door.

They exited into a long corridor. The most striking feature was that the walls were not flat, in fact the walls and ceiling formed a continuous circle, broken only by the flat floor. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all made of concrete, and every 5 metres there was a steel re-enforcing beam encircling the corridor. At the end of the corridor was a bulkhead with "28 G" written on it.

"Oh my god," said Lisa "we're in Cheyenne Mountain!"

"How did you know that? Asked John, bemused

"Oh come on, we've all seen Stargate" she jibed

They kept walking along the corridor when Lisa spotted something. A door marked "Star Gate Command".

"No. Way!" exclaimed Lisa

John smiled knowingly, and walked over to the door. He opened it, revealing… a broom closet.

"And who says the Air Force doesn't have a sense of humour?" chuckled John

They continued down the hall until they reached another door – this one was covered in warning signs. 'NO METAL OBJECTS', 'NO CELL PHONES', 'MAY WIPE MAGNETIC STORAGE MEDIA', 'LIQUID HELIUM COOLING IN USE', 'DANGER 2.5 TESLA MAGNETIC FIELD'.

The guards followed them in but had to surrender their weapons at the door.

"This is an MRI," explained John "which stands for-"

"Yeah, I know" Lisa cut in "Magnetic Resonance Imaging"

"Alright then," chuckled John "anyway, we're going to scan your head, you don't have to worry – it's perfectly safe."

"I know, my dad's had like 50 of them" said Lisa, reminiscing

Lisa's face suddenly fell, for a few seconds there she had almost forgotten that she was a captive, but the thought of her father was enough to bring it all tumbling down.

She lay down on the MRI table. She knew it was coming it was standard procedure, but she was still a little shocked when John locked the cage into place over her head to keep it still during the procedure. The table began to move, pulling her into the maw of the machine. Alright she thought, everything's fine. A magnetic field 80,000 times stronger than Earth's own was about to be passed through her head – but that was ok wasn't it? At least theoretically it shouldn't have any effect… Just centimetres from her face the liquid helium would be circulating, cooling the superconducting magnet – cold enough to flash freeze her skin to her skull – but that wouldn't happen would it? The shielding was more than adequate…

There was a loud 'Thunk' as the machine started up, causing her to jump slightly.

"Hold still please" said a voice over an intercom

Ok, thought Lisa, that's just the magnet activating. Calm down

The scan lasted nearly 40 minutes, by which time Lisa was about ready to jump out of her skin – she had an itch on her face, which she had been trying to ignore for the last 10 minutes, with little success. Trying not to think about it had only made it worse. As soon as the cage came off her hand shot up to her face and tore at the itch. Ahhh, she thought to herself, that's better.

"You did great" said John, helping her down from the table "we're going to try an EEG next, do you know what that stands for?"

"Something hard to pronounce, I can remember that much" replied Lisa "I had one once, when I was much younger –"

"We know," said John "they seized your medical records, you had an EEG when you were 5, they suspected you might have epilepsy, but the test cleared you."

"Er, right," said Lisa, hesitantly "thanks."

They walked to another room, the guards followed, once again armed. In the room was a reclining chair, behind which was a stand similar to an IV trolley holding dozens of multi-coloured wires tipped with tiny copper disks. The wires lead to a bank of computers, which was manned by a technician. There was a diagram on one of the monitors detailing the positions at which the electrodes were to be attached, in the diagram the model had no hair.

"You're not going to have to shave my head are you?" asked Lisa worriedly running her hand through her spikey hair

"No, we can attach the electrodes through your hair," answered John, looking at her hair spikes "although you are going to have to wash out that hair gel, it interferes with the conductive paste."

"Oh," said Lisa "there's no gel, it just does that on its own."

"Really?" asked John, he reached out and touched her hair, noting that it was soft and springy, despite its spikey appearance "no kidding, huh."

Lisa sat in the chair and the technician began to apply the electrodes. The conductive paste felt slightly gritty and icy cold on her scalp, despite the fact that it was room temperature. It took nearly 30 minutes to get all the electrodes hooked up.

"What did you say EEG stood for?" asked Lisa

"I didn't," replied John "it stands for Electroencephalogram, we're just going to get a baseline today, so you don't have to do anything in particular."

True to his word, she didn't really have to do anything other than sit there for another 30 minutes; she had John explain the basic physical principles behind the machine, and she looked around the room noting the two small air vents and the smoothness of the concrete floor, walls and ceiling turning to look all around the room until the technician told her to sit still – for fear she would dislodge the electrodes.

Removing the electrodes proved far less difficult than attaching them. The technician, simply grabbed the bundle of wires and pulled, slipping them off her head.

"Just another couple tests and we're done for today," said John

They walked to another room, once again flanked by the guards. This room appeared to be the base infirmary, there was a row of hospital beds with an array of medical equipment surrounding them. At the moment the beds were empty.

"We're going to take some blood," said John, comfortingly "I know you might not like needles, but I promise it wont hurt a bit."

"Only babies and ex-junkies are afraid of needles," said Lisa, remembering her last inoculations "stick me."

Despite her show of bravado she couldn't bare to watch as the needle was inserted into her arm. She felt a sharp pinch as it punctured her skin, bringing a tear to her eye. Once it was in, the trouble wasn't so much that it hurt as much as it was the idea of having a piece of metal sliding around beneath her skin. She dared to have a look over and she could see the ampule filling with her blood – it made her vaguely nauseous. She looked away again, hurriedly.

"Ok we're done," said John, finally "just one more test to run, we need to take a spinal tap."

"err what's that?" asked Lisa, it certainly didn't sound nice

"We're going to take a sample of your cerebrospinal fluid, by inserting a needle into your spinal cavity." Explained John, pulling out the needle, which was about 10 centimetres (3") long and strangely a bit flexible.

"No!" yelled Lisa "Get that thing away from me!"

"I'm sorry," said John "but we don't really have a choice, half the scientists here are just dying to get a brain biopsy from you – you know, where they drill into your skull and take a sample of the brain? Well this will keep them satisfied, at least for a while. I could sedate you for the procedure, if you would prefer…"

Lisa was frightened of the spinal tap, but she wasn't about to be drugged again if she could help it.

"Fine," she said, dejectedly "just do it."

She lay down on her side, as he instructed and lifted the back of her shirt to reveal her lower back.

"Ok, I'm going to inject some local anaesthetic," said John, calmly "you're going to feel a slight prick."

"Ow" she exclaimed, She could already feel the area starting to go numb.

After about 30 seconds the main needle was inserted. It was strange, she couldn't feel any pain, but she felt a tearing sensation as the needle penetrated into her spinal cavity.

-x-

Back in her room Lisa lay on her bed with the laptop. All that seemed to be on it was a diary program and bunch of games that seemed like, and almost certainly were, psychological tests. Stupid, she thought to herself. She knocked the computer away, only meaning to bump it, but instead knocking it off the edge and onto the floor.

She snatched up the computer. It looked fine, but the screen was now black. She pressed the power button, and to her surprise was met with a different screen it read 'DRIVE CORRUPTED, RE-FORMAT FROM NETWORK GHOST IMAGE Y/N?'

Interesting, she thought to herself. She hit 'Y' and the hard drive spun up to speed, a progress bar inched across the screen. When the bar filled another message appeared. 'RE-FORMAT SUCCESSFUL, PRESS ANY KEY TO REBOOT'. She hit 'ENTER' and sure enough the computer booted into the desktop, however there were now more icons on the desktop, including one that read 'SURVIELANCE'. She double clicked on it and a program opened up, displaying security camera feeds from throughout the base, including 8 angles within her room. Time to see what they were hiding, she grinned.

Lisa paged through screen after screen of identical hallways and sparsely furnished rooms from the codes at the corner of the screen she could ascertain that they were all on the same level. She spotted John, walking down one of the hallways and decided to follow him. She clicked a button, which read 'track'. A circle appeared around John's head and then some dots on his face, before the computer identified him and tagged his name above his head. As he turned a corner the computer automatically switched to a better angle and pivoted to follow him.

Eventually John stopped at a door and inserted his card. The door buzzed open and the camera switched to a view from inside the room. In the room Lisa could see director Allen. John walked in at threw a piece of paper onto the director's desk. If only she could hear what they were saying… As if sensing her intent another button appeared at the bottom of the screen, which read 'audio on'. With a second's hesitation she clicked it.

"…can't do this anymore," said Tolman, hurriedly "I have a daughter around her age – it's not right, what we're doing. Obviously I can't do anything to stop you, but I want no further part of it, at the very least I've lost my objectivity. So that's my resignation."

John looked rather flustered, as one might expect from someone who was quitting his job. For his part the director looked as impassive as ever, his hands folded neatly on the desk in front of him.

"No" replied the director, after a dramatic pause "I won't accept your resignation." 

"W-what?" asked John "Why?"

"You're the foremost expert in parapsychology and paraphysiology, you're invaluable here, do you really want to go back into the outside world?" asked the Director "mocked by your colleges for your studies into telekinesis, living off the pittance you can make being interviewed by Paranormal Weekly?"

"You don't understand" John shot back "I quit. What are you going to do? Force me to work at gunpoint?"

"I don't think it'll come to that," said the director "it can be so dangerous, working for the government, not just for the agent, but for his family as well. You never know when a group of 'terrorists' might target them for leverage…"

"Are you threatening my family?" asked John, stunned

"Of course not…" said the director, smiling wolfishly " but they're so fragile… perhaps they should be moved to a more 'secure' location."

"You bastard!" yelled John, before sighing "look, I'll do what you want, just leave my family out of this."

"So we have an understanding then," stated the director "you will continue your research."

"Yes sir" said John

Suddenly the screen blacked out and the words 'UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED' were emblazoned across it. Oh well, though Lisa, she hadn't expected her access to go undetected for long – in fact she was surprised it had lasted so long – maybe they weren't watching her as carefully as she thought…

-x-

"Annnd Cut" said Director Allen "very convincing if I do say so myself"

"I try my best sir." Said John, smirking

"But is all this whole 'good cop, bad cop' routine really necessary?" asked the Director "I mean, she's eight, couldn't we just put a gun to her head?"

"If we don't have the subject's free co-operation we may as well just do an autopsy" replied John "we're talking psychology here, if the subject is resisting us, even subconsciously, it wont work. The subject has to trust me completely."

"So you're against performing an autopsy?" asked the director

"For now," said Tolman "there's more to be learned by keeping the subject alive, but suffer no illusions, the subject will have to be terminated eventually. The subject's aberration seems to be centred around the pituitary gland, a gland which is largely inactive in a child her age – right now the subject can melt steel, imagine how the power will grow as the subject enters puberty and the gland goes into overdrive, almost doubling in size, increasing it's output ten-fold. The subject could quite conceivably melt down this entire mountain granite and all. We will have to terminate the subject before then, if only for reasons of containment."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Okay, so you're probably wondering why I haven't updated in like 2 months. Well this chapter was a bit tricky to write, and I'm still not entirely happy with it, but I figured enough was enough, so here it is. Its format is hopefully not too confusing, as it jumps around a bit. Oh, and it's 5000 words, so enjoy :)**

Chapter 4:

Bart laid back his head, crushing the cheap motel pillow down to the hard mattress. On the room's other bed his father did the same. Bart was dead tired, this was the third motel in as many days. He was barely recognisable with his usual blond spikes replaced with a mess of brown curls. Less than a week ago they had been a happy, if dysfunctional, family. Now his sister had been abducted, his family was split up and on the run. All he had to his name was a small bag and a change of clothes. How had it all gone so wrong, so fast?

He closed his eyes and once again saw the commandos, dragging his sister's unconscious body, their emotionless gold visors, their jet-black armour seeming almost to suck in the light. They moved like wraith, unnaturally fast yet somehow not breaking into a run. On their shoulders, as if mocking him, gleamed an American flag, the same flag he saluted every morning and pledged his allegiance to. Where was his sister's 'liberty', her 'justice'? Or was it a lie, endlessly recited by millions of children who lacked the experience to know better?

There was Lisa in the middle of their formation, looking so fragile and out of place, not completely unconscious, he realised, her eyes were open, and for a moment they locked on his. Even recalling that moment shot a shard of ice straight through his heart. It felt as if he were breathing glass, and it was cutting his throat. There was nothing he could do and it hurt him, but he dared not look away. He could see Lisa's lips move. 'Help me' they said, before she was dragged further down the corridor, out of sight from his vantage point through the window in the classroom door.

"Damit!" he screamed, smashing his fist into the window

The wired glass cracked, but didn't shatter, his fist was bleeding, but he didn't care. He kicked nearest desk as hard as he could, sending it end over end. He picked up a chair and threw it shattering a window.

"Bart!" yelled Mrs Krabaple, with more concern than anger "stop!"

"Or what!" Bart yelled back "I'll get detention? I don't give a crap anymore! I – I c-c…"

He fell to his knees and his shoulders heaved as he let out a sob.

"Lisa." He choked, punching the floor and leaving a fist-print of his blood.

-x-

They had sent him home after that. What else could they do when he alternated between sobbing and fits of violence? He waited in the office for his mother to arrive. He wasn't crying anymore, just staring at the wall with a blank expression.

They hadn't explained anything. They probably didn't know themselves, he thought looking back on it. Just the flash of a badge and a 'National Security, sir' and they had free reign.

Marge's blue hair brushed the top of the doorways as she entered the room holding Maggie. She spotted Bart and crossed the room, standing over him.

"Bartholomew J Simpson!" scolded Marge "what have you done this time?"

Bart leant forward and clung to her in a hug. Marge froze, her expression morphing from anger to shocked concern. How old had he been, the last time he had willingly hugged her in public?

"Bart!" she gasped, looking down into his tear filled eyes "what's wrong!"

"I couldn't stop them," Bart sobbed "they took her. They took Lisa!"

Marge's heart skipped a beat.

"Who?" she asked fearfully, kneeling down to his height

"Soldiers. They had guns." He replied

No, she thought, not that, please not that.

"OK Bart this is very important," she urged "what markings did they have?"

Bart thought back.

"American flags" he spat "they were our soldiers!"

"What else?" she questioned "did they have a unit designation?"

He thought harder.

"Not really, all they had was this patch which said 'P… SA"

Marge grabbed Bart by the arm and dragged him from the room, walking very quickly, not quite breaking into a run. The pace was uncomfortable for Bart with his shorter legs.

"Hey!" he protested

"We have to leave. NOW." She said shortly "no time to explain, come with me."

She let go of Bart's arm, and pulled out her cellphone. They exited the school and headed for her car. Marge dialled and put the phone to her ear. It rang twice.

"Homer…" she said waiting for the response "…it's them, they have Lisa, I have Bart and Maggie, you know what to do… no, not the aliens, the other ones."

She hung up. Bart looked at her questioningly. They reached the car and got in. Marge started the car and drove just under the speed limit, eventually pulling onto the highway.

"This isn't the way home." Bart pointed out

"We're not going home" Marge replied

"Where are we going then?"

"I don't know"

"When can we come back?"

"Maybe never"

"Who were those guys? Why did they take Lisa?"

Marge sighed.

"You have to understand Bart," she explained "we were hoping never to have to tell you about this. We thought it was over."

Bart crossed his arms and glared at her.

"You mean you knew this might happen," he challenged "you knew, but you never told us!"

"Telling you would only have put you in more danger," she replied "and like I said, we thought it was over."

"Well," Bart pointed out "you thought wrong."

Marge ignored him, shifting into fifth. The pavement sped by underneath them, a tiny crackle like a silent LP, the engine thrumming gently as the car cruised along at a constant speed.

"It all started 10 years before you were born," she began "a turbulent time known as, the 1990's"

-x-

I've already told you about the time I went to college, but here's a quick recap. Shortly after highschool, Homer and I moved in together. I got accepted to a college, while your father… mhmm, wasn't that, er… lucky. It was like a dream come true, an expensive dream, but your father loved me and supported me. To pay my tuition he had to get a job from his father. Our relationship went through a rough patch, but in the end we came out stronger. Here's the part I haven't told you. It was a small incident, but one that would have far reaching consequences.

I had a friend named Tracy, a psychology major. She was no-one special really, in the scheme of things, but she just happened to have a class run by a Dr Wanless, who in turn was running a study for an obscure branch of government known as the 'Paranormal Security Agency'.

_Springfield University, 20 years ago_

Marge was studying in the university library, her blue hair hung loosely down to her shoulders, occasionally she looked up from the book she was reading to brush a strand of hair out of her eyes.

"You know, you really should consider wearing your hair up," said a voice, startling her "it wouldn't get in your way so often."

"Oh hi Tracy," said Marge, turning to face her "you snuck up on me, again."

Tracy smiled, running a hand through her short blond hair. She was quite attractive really, but she never wore the clothes to show it off. She seemed to be almost solely concerned with practicality. Now she wore a red hoodie, loose blue jeans and converse sneakers.

"It's no fun when you make it so easy" Tracy teased

"Not that I don't appreciate the company," replied Marge "but was there something you came to tell me?"

"There was actually," said Tracy thoughtfully "how would you like to earn $500 for sitting around doing nothing?"

"Well I could use the money Trace, you know I could," replied Marge, suspicious "but I'd have to wonder what the catch is."

"No catch," assured Tracy "just a psychology experiment, mild hallucinogenics, totally safe, they're looking for volunteers."

"Why the big payout then?" questioned Marge

"Oh, well it's like, being run by this government agency, the PSA," explained Tracy "agencies like that have to spend their whole yearly budget to justify a similar expenditure next year, hell last semester they paid people $200 to take a telepathy test – trying to guess cards! Look I'm not trying to pressure you or anything, I just thought you could use the money."

Marge thought over it. $500 was a lot of money, and surely it would be safe… I mean the government didn't just go around poisoning college students now did it?

"Alright," said Marge "I'll do it… say, do the volunteers have to be students at the college?"

"No," replied Tracy "why?"

"So my boyfriend could get in on this as well?" asked Marge

"I don't see why not." Tracy responded

-x-

_Level 28 Armory, Cheyenne Mountain, Present Day (6 days since Lisa's incarceration)_

Andrew Reilly cursed as he donned his silver fire suit. It turned out that its heat reflective properties worked just as well inside as they did out, ironically making the suit very hot for the wearer.

"Goddam spaceman suit" he muttered

"You wanna get your ass fried?" said Samantha his partner, "that girl is scary, you can see it in her eyes – like hot coals."

Andy raised an eyebrow.

"I've heard stories," she continued "they say she's far smarter than any child should rightly be, that she killed her parents in cold blood and burned down her school. They're not even sure she's human."

Andy put the suspenders over his shoulders and reached for the coat.

"So you're buying into this whole 'starts-fires-with-her-mind' bizzo?" asked Andrew, "she just looks like an ordinary scared little kid to me."

Sam had her suit ready and held the enormous gold-visored helmet under her arm.

"What, you think they lied to us?" she asked "what else could it be? They wouldn't take these security precautions for nothing."

She put down her helmet and grabbed a P90 from a rack on the wall, slamming in a 50 round mag. She pressed the flat of it to Andy's chest.

"Get set Corporal, our shift starts in 5." she ordered

"Yes Lieutenant ma'am!" snapped Andrew

Sam grabbed a P90 for herself and they left the room, donning helmets as they went.

"Permission to speak freely?" asked Andy, his voice crackling over the radio

"Granted" sighed Sam, her voice coming through his ear piece as they walked through the hall.

"What if she's a political prisoner, like someone's daughter or something," he posited "the pyrokinesis could just be a cover for why she's really here."

"First off, it's not your job to ask questions, we were ordered to guard this girl, that's the end of it," she countered "and second, you're full of it, they could come up with a lot simpler excuses for why they're holding her, plus, I have a friend on the retrieval team and they saw her in action, lit one of 'em up like a human torch."

Andrew digested this new information. She'd attacked someone. That really put a new light on things… and she really could control fire! Well, maybe. He was by nature a sceptic and pyrokinetic powers were stretching the imagination. I mean sure, it might look like she did it with her mind, but it was at her school, she could have set something up prior to their arrival. She just looked so damn cute and innocent, harmless even. He'd have to be more on his guard now.

-x-

Lisa had never had so much time to herself in her life, it gave her a lot of time to think, time to meditate. She hadn't left the room or talked to anyone in three days. The silent, faceless guards had brought her food, and she was beginning to wonder what had happened to John. Surely he wouldn't just abandon her? The thought of this place without him was just terrifying. Please let him be ok! She thought to herself.

She had come up with an idea for how to tell time. She was sure they were messing with her meal times, just to confuse her. In the bathroom she had found two clear plastic cups, one empty, and one with a toothbrush and some nail clippers in it. Perfect. The cups were of the thin disposable variety. Using the nail clippers she punched the smallest possible hole in the side of the cup, near the bottom. She filled the cup, causing water to drip out. She counted 300 seconds and then marked the water level by gouging the plastic carefully with the clippers. She counted another 300 seconds and marked it again. She knew the drop in the water level over time would decrease at an exponential rate, due to the decreasing pressure of the water in the bottom of the cup, so she marked the remainder of the cup in a roughly exponential pattern. The cup would fully empty in about 1 hour, so now at least she could count the hours… while she was awake. It wasn't perfect, but it would be. She had nothing but time, and it paid to keep her mind active.

She sat in lotus position, resting her back against the edge of her bed. Hmmm. Maybe if she could set up some sort of cascade… but no, it would leak out of the second cup just as fast as it filled. A more viscous fluid maybe? Shampoo? No, there wasn't enough of it. What if both cups were filled with water, the second cup would drain into the first, refilling it, starting at the same rate as it emptied, but slowing down faster than the bottom because the bottom cup is always slightly fuller… it worked in theory. But for less than two hours. It would take 1 hour for the top cup to empty, at which time the bottom cup would only be partially full. This was going nowhere. She could, of course, just assume that sleeping took eight hours, but that would be tantamount to admitting defeat. No, she would solve this.

Maybe she was approaching it from the wrong angle. Fluid clocks were a good idea, but perhaps there was another way. She rolled onto her bed and lay flat, closing her eyes. What else happened at precise enough rate to mark time…

"Toothpaste!" she snorted with laughter.

-x-

In the ghostly glow of the video monitors, one of the guards was frowning.

"She's been sitting like that for 10 minutes," he accused "I don't like it. She's plotting something."

"Ce'mon man," urged his partner "you're getting paranoid, a symptom of boredom I do believe"

The first guard saw Lisa's lips move and turned to his partner.

"Wha'd she just say? Quick, run back the audio!" He ordered

His partner slipped on some headphones and tapped a few keys before snorting with laughter himself.

"What! Wha'd she say?" He asked impatiently

His partner smiled wolfishly.

"Toothpaste." He stated simply "she said 'toothpaste', then started laughing."

"She's lost her mind, poor thing." Said the first guard, sympathetically shaking his head

-x-

It was a crazy idea, but it might just work. Toothpaste was water soluble, and, provided she could get the same amount each time, pretty darn consistent. She could use the cup clock to measure the amount of time it took different amounts of toothpaste to dissolve. It would dissolve at an exponentially decreasing rate as its surface area decreased, but that didn't matter if she was measuring the length of time it took to completely dissolve. She laughed again. Mathematically speaking, an exponential decay would never really end – the object would just get so small that it was impossible to measure. She laughed even harder as she noticed she had used the word 'decay' in relation to toothpaste.

She frowned suddenly as she realised that it wasn't actually that funny. It worried her, was it an early sign of madness?

"And you said I was crazy." Teased Juliet from next to her on the bed (Lisa's best friend from 'Lisa the Drama Queen')

"uh yeah," Lisa shot back " 'cause you lived in a fantasy world."

"When I left, you wouldn't come with me," stated Juliet "said you need to live in the 'real world'. Well, how's the 'real world' working out for you?"

Lisa looked at her long lost friend. She wasn't alone anymore! She felt kind of bad about the terms of their parting, but that was all ok now. She was overjoyed just to have someone to talk to! Another thought hit her suddenly crushing her joy.

"You're not really here are you." Lisa sighed "I'm hallucinating."

"The 'real world' is for people who can't imagine anything better." Juliet repeated

"Shut up!" yelled Lisa "you're not real."

"Crazy girl, yelling at her imagination," teased Juliet, disappearing into thin air

Lisa groaned in frustration. She was too old and too smart to have an imaginary friend.

-x-

_Springfield University 20 years ago (the day of the experiment)_

One of the rooms on campus had been fitted out to conduct the experiment. Desks had been removed and 12 military looking cots occupied the room, surrounded with various pieces of medical equipment. Marge's first impression was that it looked like some kind of trauma centre in a war zone, not exactly comforting. Homer was right there beside her, she squeezed his hand and was comforted. Some of the other students were already seated on their cots, lab techs buzzing around them in white coats, rigging up the equipment.

Once all of the student volunteers had arrived Dr Wanless gave a speech that was almost comical in its vagueness. Suffice to say that they should not worry, they were safely in the arms of modern science. The one piece of information that could be obtained is that it would be a double blind study. That was to say that neither the students nor the researcher's would know who was getting injected with the drug and who was getting the placebo.

"Now does anyone have any questions before be begin?" asked Wanless, a student raised her hand "yes?"

"I thought experiments involving haluciongenics were banned in the sixties." Said the student

"That's not a question." Replied Wanless, wanly "but yes they were, suffice to say that the drug we are testing had not yet been invented and is not covered by that law."

Another student spoke up "Uh, what is the drug we're testing then?"

"That's classified" replied Wanless, shortly "now if there are no further questions-"

"When do I git ma munny?" Homer called out

Some of the other students laughed.

"Yes, well that is rather important" joked Wanless, smiling weakly "you'll get your money right after the test along with everyone else."

The students cheered as they lay down and waited to have an unknown substance injected into their arms.

As the lab tech approached with the needle Marge was beginning to wonder if this was such a good idea. The technician drew back the syringe, drawing air into it. He stuck the needle into a sealed jar marked 'Lot 7' and injected the air, then drew back the syringe again, extracting the clear liquid. He tapped the syringe and ensured there were no air bubbles before inserting it into a vein on Marge's arm. Almost instantaneously Marge's worries were gone.

Everything was moving in slow motion, she saw a bird fly past the window, its wings flapping agonisingly slow. All the sudden the clouds outside flew across the sky as if propelled by impossibly strong winds. People in the room walked so fast they blurred. Outside the sky was rapidly turning orange as the sun set.

That's were Marge's memory got hazy, she could vaguely remember some tests that she had undergone, some of them involved playing cards and knocking over domino's with her mind. That said she could also remember the walls melting, multi-coloured fish swimming through the room and some kind of three-headed alien that tried to defibrillate one of the students.

-x-

Bart had become so wrapped up in the story that he was shocked when the car suddenly stopped. He looked around and saw that they were at a gas station. It was a fairly old, and quite small with only two gas pumps. Why had they stopped? They couldn't have run out of gas this quickly… There was only one other car at the station, and Bart recognised the pink sedan instantly. It was his father's car.

That's where they had split up. As a family they were easier to track, movements were logistically more difficult. It would be easy to identify them from a description if they were together. 'An overweight balding middle aged man and a blue haired woman, traveling with a 10 year old boy and a baby', was fairly descriptive, whereas 'a man and his son' and 'a woman and her baby' were much harder to identify. So Bart got in Homer's car and they exited the station traveling in the opposite direction to Marge. They drove to the nearest town before abandoning the car and catching a taxi.

-x-

_Dingy Motel Room, Unknown Location, Present Day_

And so had begun their life on the run. Bart opened his eyes, staring at the dark ceiling. It was the middle of the night, and there was very little moon, the only light came from a street light across the carpark. With his night vision fully adjusted he could just barely make out the outlines of a few objects in the room. The shadows were so inky black that his eyes couldn't penetrate, no matter how long he stared at them. Black like the wing casings on a beetle, black like the empty vacuum of space, black like… like the armour the commandos wore. The images flashed through his mind again. He shivered involuntarily. His imagination ran wild, he could see commandos crawling around in the shadows, hear them moving around outside. He knew they weren't really there, but that didn't stop his heart from thumping like a jackhammer. He stuck a pillow over his head.

"They're not real," he repeated into the pillow, his voice shaking "they're not real, they're not real. They can't hurt me. I'm too old to be afraid of the dark."

Eventually his heart rate slowed, his breathing became less ragged and he fell into a dreamless sleep.

-x-

Lieutenant Kyle Nelson was in position to the left of the motel room door. He held his P90 with technical precision, despite his bulky armour gauntlets. His finger safely indexed outside the trigger guard. He breathed in, then out, the sound echoing in his helmet. The situation was too familiar. He could never forget that day, it was burned into his brain like a cattle brand, and it was just as painful.

_Outside a similar motel, 4 years ago_

Officer Nelson was in position, 'LAPD SWAT' emblazoned across the front of his bullet-proof vest. He gripped his MP5 close to his chest. Inside the motel room were an unknown number of armed criminals. He nodded to his teammate who swung a battering ram into the door, knocking it off its hinges. Kyle moved into the room and was immediately ambushed from the left, he pulled the trigger, spraying three rounds into centre mass at point blank range. Blood spattered everywhere and the body fell on him, but Kyle wasn't distracted. He pushed the body away, and continued. He saw a man in the kitchenette, holding a cooking knife. The man yelled out and started moving towards him.

"POLICE!" Kyle yelled aiming his gun "Drop the knife! Get on your knees!"

The man continued towards him in an almost trance like state, still gripping the knife.

"STAY BACK!" Kyle yelled

The man got within two meters (5') of Kyle and he was forced into action. He pulled the trigger again, and two rounds shot through the man's chest. He fell to the floor and Kyle kicked the knife out of his hand. Kyle surveyed the room.

"CLEAR!" he yelled

He heard the latch unlock on the bathroom and he snapped his gun around to face the door.

"Surrender!" he yelled "there's no escape. Come out with your hands up."

The door started to open.

"Let me see your hands, now!" He ordered

The door swung open all the way and what Kyle saw would stay with him, even more than they eyes of the people he had killed. In the doorway stood a little girl who couldn't be older than 10, large blue eyes wide in terror, blond hair quivering with the rest of her body. She saw her parents lying dead on the floor and screamed.

Kyle couldn't breathe, he felt like he was going to throw up. FBI agents were already securing the scene. He pushed past them, he had to get out. He couldn't breathe.

He got outside and grabbed a teammate's shoulder with his bloodstained hand, for support.

"What the fuck, was that!" he yelled, almost pleading "there weren't supposed to be any kids!"

"We knew the intel was sketchy going in," replied his teammate sympathetically "you were just doing your job."

-x-

_Dingy Motel, Unknown Location, Present Day (0200 hours)_

It had turned out that it wasn't even the right address. The informant was feeding them fake information. The two he had killed were perfectly innocent. The mother had simply been too close to the door, the father probably wasn't even aware he was holding a knife as he approached his wife's body. He hadn't been convicted of any criminal charges. Other officers had testified that he was following standard procedure, and had fired in self-defence. But none of that could reverse what he'd done. He had resigned from the police and, after a series of failed attempts to get a regular job, eventually ended up working for the PSA. He worked his way up the ranks and eventually earned the coveted PSA-1 patch, placing him on the SRT, Special Retrieval Team. It was known jokingly among the operatives as 'going black' after both the specialised black armour they wore and the 'black ops' they were often engaged in.

Kyle breathed in and out, concentrating entirely on the mission ahead putting all other thoughts out of his mind.

"Alright team," the captain's voice came over the radio in his helmet "our primary target is the boy. We have no intel on his psychic powers, but it's a reasonable assumption that he has them given that our previous target was his sister. He's older, so his powers could be even more advanced. The father apparently possesses a weak, sporadic accelerated healing ability, but no offensive powers as far as we know. A tazer proved effective in subduing his sister so that's what we'll use this time. Remember, we need the child alive. The father is expendable. BREACH AND CLEAR!"

The small wads of C4 in the lock and next to the hinges detonated simultaneously. The team activated their headlamps to blind the targets as they burst into the room. One of the agents fired his wrist-mounted tazer at Bart. The silver barbs shot across the room, glinting in the torchlight.

**A/N 2: Awww, a cliff hanger :(**

**Well the chapter had to end sometime. I'd really like to know what you think of it. And for those Anons out there, you don't need an account to review! So I'd like to hear what you think too :) just click that button down there that says 'review'  
**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: If you thought my last chapter was long, your in for a shock this time. 6500 words. Hopefully that doesn't bother anyone too much (I've actually had to cut it down, just to get it this small, don't worry it's going in the next chapter).**

**If I've done this chapter right, hopefully no-one will take offence to the content of this chapter, or say that it sucks - but what do I know, I'm just the author.  
**

**There's two OC's that you should remember from last chapter. Kyle Nelson (a PSA-1 agent) and Andrew Rielly (one of Lisa's guards). If you can't remember, you might want to skim the second half of chapter 4 as they both have increaced roles in this chapter.**

**Without further stalling for time - here is the chapter, and the conclusion to the cliffhanger. Enjoy.  
**

Chapter 5:

Bart woke suddenly as the door was blown off its hinges. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. The door slowly fell to the floor, the commandos walked in at a crawl, headlamps blaring. Come to think of it, everything *was* moving in slow motion. The armoured commandos rushed into the room, but to Bart it looked like they were barely moving. One of them raised their arm and pointed it at Bart. There was a small puff of smoke as the two explosive charges sent the electrified barbs flying in his direction. He had plenty of time to avoid them and roll off the bed. He stood up and surveyed the situation. Two of the soldiers had entered the room, and a third was in the doorway. Homer was just starting to wake up, and the soldier who had fired the tazer was still unaware that he had missed. What could he do? Push them over maybe? He walked over and pushed one of the soldiers gently with one hand. A lightning bolt of pain shot through his arm and his hand felt like it might be broken. For his part the soldier flew back (slowly from Bart's perspective) almost five feet through the air and hit his head on the top of the doorjam.

Bart sat back on the floor and cradled his injured hand. What the hell was going on? The second soldier turned to face him, slowly. Bart grasped around for some kind of weapon. He found only a sock. Lacking a better option he threw the sock. The sock arched through the air at normal speed before striking the faceplate of the slow motion soldier. The soldier's head snapped back as if he had been clotheslined and he flew back, demolishing a plasterboard wall. For him the sock had been traveling at several hundred kilometres per hour.

-x-

Kyle coughed blood into his visor. He took a ragged breath as he sat up, it hurt to breathe. Felt like he'd probably cracked a rib. Without his armour the blow surely would have caved his chest. What the hell was this kid's power? Telekinesis? Super-strength? How do you fight it? He had avoided the Tazer, so what, teleportation? What other non-lethals did they have... ketamine darts would probably miss too, flash bang grenades would give them a distraction, tear gas wouldn't be consistent enough, nor the sonic disrupter, the knock out gas canister in his gauntlet, or even one of the anaesthetic grenades might do the trick, but they were notoriously unreliable, particularly on children. He checked his HUD, the frontal ceramic plate was cracked but seal integrity was still good. He saw the Captain get hit in the head with something and fly back into a wall, unconscious. That put Kyle in command. Fuck it.

"K-gas, now!" he yelled over the com-link

He grabbed a KO gas grenade off his belt and activated it. It rolled into the centre of the room, spewing white gas.

-x-

Bart saw the commando he had pushed take a grenade off his belt and the gas spewing out of it. He had seen enough movies to know a gas grenade when he saw one. What should he do? He held his breath, ran over to Homer and grabbed his arm. Somehow this accelerated Homer into Bart's timeframe and they ran out the door, past the almost frozen soldiers. They got into their rental car and drove away, tires smoking.

-x-

Kyle could see very little through the fog of the KO gas. Switching over to thermal optics he swept the room. They were nowhere to be seen.

"Damnit, they're gone," he swore "get me 'Zeus'."

-x-

60,000 feet overhead a Predator B-mod 5 drone codename: 'Zeus', circled. There was a slight whirring noise as the telescopic thermal camera zoomed in on the action far below. It broadcast a the view directly to a US military satellite which bounced it back down to a control centre in Cheyenne mountain, and to a receiver in Kyle's suit, giving him a bird's eye view on his HUD.

-x-

Kyle watched the aerial feed, the rental car's engine stood out like lighthouse in the thermal spectrum, easy pickings – but they needed them alive.

"What are Zeus' present armourments?" questioned Kyle "Do we have EMP missiles?"

"Negative Alpha-two, 2 Hellfire Laser-guided, 1 AG-162 stealth missile" The reply came over his headset "We have the shot, please advise."

Damn, thought Kyle, the 162 would clean up this situation nicely, it was almost invisible both to radar and the naked eye and with its minimal payload the explosion wouldn't look anything like a missile strike, but they needed them alive.

"Negative Zeus," he spoke into his radio, picking himself up off the floor "target is in the vehicle, observation only."

He walked over to the captain. He could see the captain's vitals on his HUD. He was still breathing but he was unconscious and the suit had hardened to form a neck brace in case he had spinal injuries. The mission was FUBAR and once again it was due to inadequate intelligence. It was a miracle no-one had been killed.

"Right I'm calling it," said Kyle "mission failed; we need extraction and a clean-up crew. Instruct local law enforcement to stay away from that car, those cops have no idea what they're dealing with, we don't want this turning into a bloodbath."

-x-

A black helicopter descended onto the roof of the motel, on its side the letters FBI stood out in bright white. PSA-1 boarded the chopper, carrying their captain. The chopper pilot eyed their armour with interest.

"That's some pretty fancy armour you got there," said the pilot "PSA huh, I thought I knew all the players, but I've never heard of you guys."

"This mission is classified under directive Lima Zero Lima," instructed Kyle "we were never here. Now step on it, he needs medical attention."

The pilot obeyed and took off immediately. Kyle sat on the floor of the chopper, his back against the wall. In his bulky armour, he didn't fit properly into the seats. He smacked his armoured fist into the floor. Damnit. They had failed. They never failed, failure cost lives. It was only a matter of time before this turned into a massacre. 1974, Carrie White had killed nearly 150 people at a high school prom with telekinetic powers, before dying of a heart attack. 1983 Charlie McGee murdered more than 300 people when she torched an entire government agency using pyrokinesis, she was still unaccounted for. 1999 'Lucy' in Japan had reportedly killed hundreds, maybe thousands of people, ripping them limb from limb using what were described as 'vectors' before pushing too far and melting her body into goop. The list went on. Every time a paranormal was allowed to go free they ended up going on a rampage and often killing themselves in the process. He was not going to be responsible for allowing it to happen again. 'Bart' had to be taken down, no matter what the cost. For Bart's own safety and that of those around him.

-x-

_Lisa's cell, level 28, Cheyenne Mountain_

Lisa was beginning to think about ways she could escape. She tried to think about other jail breaks she had read about. It wasn't like she could tunnel her way out, the mountain was almost entirely granite, and she was more than 200m below the surface. She could probably take out the two guards when they brought her food, but then she would still be trapped in the airlock (which I shall henceforth refer to as a 'sally port' because that is the correct term). Really her only option was to wait for them to take her out for tests, but even if she escaped her escort she wouldn't make it any further than the elevator. If she stole a keycard she had to assume it would be deactivated as soon as they detected her using it. She shuddered as she considered an alternative option. She could take hostages. She'd been a hostage enough times that she knew what it felt like, the ever-present threat of death, the commoditisation of human life. It made her sick, she wasn't going to put anyone in that position, no matter how evil they might be.

She swung a punch at the wall, but she was sitting too far away. Oddly though the wall still made a sound, Lisa thought for a second. Was she telekinetic as well? She tried to remember the feeling that had accompanied the phantom impact. No, it had still been heat. Somehow she had heated the air in such a way that the expansion had created a focused impact on the wall, like a vector of force, she thought. Interesting… Her body seemed to know how to use her power subconsciously. The PSA didn't know about this power yet, and that gave her an edge. She reached out with a vector and felt its shape. She couldn't see it because it was made up of air, but she could feel it was shaped like a hand. She could think of a lot of simpler shapes for it to take, but a hand seemed to be the only shape her body knew how to do. She reached out with two vectors, then four, but four was all she could manage, it was too hard to concentrate on 5 things at the same time. She reached out as far as she could, about two meters, and closed her vector-hands into fists. Yes, these could prove very useful indeed.

-x-

Bart's heart was still racing as they sped away from the motel. For Bart the car was moving with an agonising slowness, he could walk faster than this! He looked over at the speedometer, they were traveling at over 70mph, almost suicidally fast for they narrow streets they were driving on. He sat there for what felt like at least an hour, then looked down at his watch. Only five minutes had passed. Homer was trying to say something to him, but to Bart the sound was so low that he could barely hear it. He looked around for the tenth time and saw that there was still no-one following them; he breathed a sigh of relief. He of course couldn't see the predator drone – at 60,000 feet it was invisible to the naked eye. His calmed down somewhat and his heart-rate slowed. Suddenly the car was accelerating out of control – wait… no, he was just slowing down, or time was speeding up… man this was confusing.

He looked at his watch and the seconds ticked by normally. Finally, he was at normal speed again.

"Bart?" asked Homer again "are you ok?"

"Uh, yeah," Bart replied, looking himself over "I think so… I have super speed!"

"I saw," said Homer "has that ever happened before?"

"No," Bart answered "never. Hey, Mom didn't finish the story, what happened to you guys after that test, with Dr Wanless?"

"She told you about that huh?" asked Homer "well, I suppose I may as well tell you the rest. Everybody died."

"What!" exclaimed Bart, incredulous "just like that? And then what, they didn't stay dead?"

"Nope, they stayed dead alright," Homer continued, "out of those 12, me and your mother are the only ones alive today. Only one of them died during the test, and we saw it – but you have to understand, with the drug they had us on we were essentially tripping out on acid. They managed to convince us that it didn't really happen. Two more committed suicide over the following month and one died in an unexplained fire. Of course the deaths were covered up, and no connection with the test could be made. Over the years the rest of the group died, one after another, through strange coincidences or inexplicable accidents. Some of them may have been taken out by the PSA, but there's really no way to know for sure. We still don't know why they left us alive, but we knew they were watching us. Waiting to see if we'd show any signs of the special powers they were attempting to create."

"So," said Bart "that's where me and Lisa get our powers."

"I guess so…" replied Homer "but Marge didn't think that wouldn't happen, something about jeans? I wasn't really paying attention."

-x-

_PSA-1 mission preparation room, level 28, Cheyenne Mountain, 1800 hours (16 hours since the failed mission)_

No expense had been spared on their surroundings, from the state-of-the-art, custom weaponry and equipment lining the walls to the holographic data projector in the centre console. They even had their own miniature firing range at the back of the room. In fact this was where PSA-1 spent most of their time. They lived and trained on base, in a network of rooms adjoining from the preparation room; their quarters, a gym, rec room, a workshop. Far from feeling restricted, they felt that this was the one place they could relax, let their guard down. Even the other agents looked at them with a kind of fear and awe. This was probably enhanced by the fact that they were not allowed to show their faces outside their sector. None of them had families, it was a requirement, and so they had become a kind of family to each-other. Brothers and sisters-in-arms, no-one else could understand them.

They were the flagship team, and they never failed to complete a mission. Well, that was until early this morning. They sat in the prep room and watched the footage from the mission again and again. Failure was a possibility they never even considered. Failure was not an option, failure cost lives, failure meant death – these concepts were deeply ingrained in them.

-x-

"What is the status of the SRT?" asked the director

Across his desk were John and Colonel Michel, leader of the air force contingent integrated with the PSA.

"Captain Hollis has a C7 spinal fracture and will have to be taken off active duty for several months," replied John reading from a report "I recommend we promote Lieutenant Nelson to acting captain. Apart from that they are all functioning within normal parameters. They're mission capable."

"According to a report I've received they've become fixated on their recent failure." replied the director "they've been reviewing it over and over for 10 hours, isn't that cause for concern?"

"With respect director, they've just lost a close comrade," interjected the Colonel "people need time to get over something like that."

"They're not 'people', they're weapons," countered John, aggravated "incredibly advanced and expensive weapons, but weapons nonetheless. They've been conditioned to take things like this without blinking. Hell, they could have an arm blown off and they'd consider it a minor inconvenience. Completing missions is the only thing they care about, we stripped away everything else, they can't even remember their lives before they came here."

The director looked at them both before raising a hand for silence.

"Enough," he said, decisively "PSA-1 will remain on active duty and re-attempt their failed mission, see what you can do about giving them an edge. Now, how is our subject?"

John opened another report and flicked through a couple pages.

"We've kept her in solitary for three days now," reported John "when we let her out she's going to be so starved for human contact that she'll imprint onto the first person she sees. She'll be extremely impressionable and won't really care what she'd doing so long as she gets someone to talk to. It should be the perfect time to start testing her ability."

"Excellent." Said the Director, tapping his fingertips together

-x-

_PSA-1 mission briefing room_

PSA-1 was still reviewing the footage, in slow motion, in fast forward, with thermal imagery, with night vision, without night vision. John entered the room, they all immediately stood up and turned to him.

"Dr Tolman" they said in unison, he just nodded

"How is Capatin Hollis?" asked Kyle, in a 'just curious' tone

"Incapacitated," replied John, "I'm placing you in command. Now show me what you've got."

He walked over the holographic projector.

"From what we can tell, the boy has some sort of time bending ability," explained Kyle, playing back the footage from his helmet cam in ultra-slow motion, "he can move at an unperceivable speed. In addition, momentum appears to change abruptly at the edge of his field of influence. When he pushed me the force was enough to throw me into the air, but it appears that it also damaged his arm – so clearly he is not immune from the reactive forces triggered at the edge of the field."

Kyle fast forwarded to another portion of the footage.

"Here you can see he picks up a sock – but watch how fast the edges flop down once he picks it up," Kyle continued "that's way faster than they should fall under normal gravity, they should accelerate at 9.8 meters per second per second, but the analysis of the footage shows them accelerating downwards at almost 100 m/s/s. This tells us three things, one – that gravity in the field is being manipulated, two – that he can expand the field to encompass surrounding objects, and three – the time differential is around 10:1 assuming that he is experiencing Earth normal gravity within the field."

"Good work," praised John, "now how do you suggest we go about capturing him?"

"We have several options," answered Kyle "each with its own set of problems. An ambush isn't likely to work, but it's possible we could sneak up on him while he's sleeping. If he woke up, we would be defenceless. Blinding him seems like an easy option, but none of our equipment is designed to cause permanent blindness and there's no telling how fast he'll recover his vision. In addition, even blinded he may prove difficult to capture, given his speed of movement. There's no telling how his body would react if we gassed him, his metabolic processes must be operating at an incredible rate to sustain his increased speed, and as we saw last time, it's difficult to deploy the gas fast enough to trap him in its spread. Even bullets might not do much good – if they experience the equivalent loss in momentum passing into the field that the sock gained traveling out they could quite literally fall out of the air."

"So you need to lure him into a trap," said John "here's what you have to do."

-x-

Lisa was surprised when she was suddenly taken out of her room for tests. She walked the halls with her usual escort of two space men (that's what she had decided to call the guards) and John. She was very happy to see him, and to her surprise she found that she couldn't stop talking. She could barely even make sense of what she was saying, it was almost incoherent, but John listened patiently to everything she had to say. She almost told him what she was about to do. She stopped when she realised she was probably being recorded. No, for this she needed the element of surprise.

-x-

PSA-1 was back in action, opting for silence rather than their usual shock and awe routine. This time was different. They knew exactly what they were up against – and hence the element of surprise was now on their side. It had been easy for the predator drone to track them to this bed & breakfast two towns over. The Simpsons slept blissfully ignorant of the SRT outside their room – but it wasn't them they were after, it was their car.

The SRT worked silently and efficiently, making some invisible modifications to the car. Kyle smiled to himself. They wouldn't know what hit them.

-x-

Andrew Reilly looked at the girl he was guarding, she looked thinner. Not malnourished exactly, just worn down, her initially innocent, fearful eyes now hard and uncompromising, her carefully trimmed hair now ever so slightly bedraggled. She looked every bit the part of a detainee, apart from the fact that she was eight! Why did they have to give him this assignment? They knew he had a daughter. His daughter was 14 now, but nevertheless, he had an almost overpowering instinct to protect this girl. During the spinal tap he'd had his fist clenched in helpless fury. What right did they have to subject her to this? He was a soldier, and so he did nothing, just following orders. That was the same excuse the Nazi's had at Nuremberg wasn't it. They were 'just following orders'. Would that be him someday? On trial, confronted by with what the PSA had done? Forced on the witness stand to repeat again and again that he was 'just following orders' as picture after picture of PSA abuses was projected behind him, the jury widening their eyes in shock, only to narrow them once more in condemnation?

No. That was overdramatising the situation, hell it was offensive to compare this to the holocaust. Still, everyone would like to think that they would stand up for what they knew was right, if they were in a situation like those German soldiers were. But where was the cut-off point? At what point do you decide to throw everything away; your job, your comrades, maybe even your life; in order to do the right thing?

-x-

Bart and Homer were driving along a residential street, heading for the freeway onramp.

BANG!

The explosive charges in the seatbelt pre-tensioners activated. Designed to protect the occupants in a crash, by stopping them from slipping under the seatbelt, they were just as effective in this instance of pinning Homer and Bart to their seats. The ABS activated and brought the car to a very sudden stop. What happened next was a decidedly non-standard feature. 30ms after the charges went off (though it was almost half a second for Bart) an electrical current passed through wires embedded in the seatbelts acting very much like a tazer as it passed through their bodies interfering with muscle control and causing waves of intense pain. 10 seconds later, though to Bart if felt like two minutes, PSA-1 had swarmed the car. Punching though the windows with their armoured gauntlets they jammed cylindrical auto-injectors against Bart and Homer's necks, depressing the plungers. After a second, Bart's vision went hazy as he slipped into unconsciousness.

Mission accomplished, thought Kyle, grinning. PSA-1 would never fail. Failure cost lives, failure meant death.

-x-

Lisa thought through the plan again. Knock out the cameras by frying their CCD's, take out the guards with her vectors, steal John's security pass, run to the elevator and activate it before they figured out what was happening. Of course she had no way of knowing what was waiting for her on the surface, but she'd cross that bridge when she came to it. And then burn it. She added with a chuckle.

-x-

Andrew shook his head. What did you do little girl? To deserve this. Was there really anything an eight year old could do that would warrant such treatment? Solitary confinement. For god sake, she was a child, and he'd seen even the toughest soldiers crack under such conditions. Every time he heard the stories about her they were more embellished. It didn't matter what she'd done, he decided, what they were doing was wrong.

He thought of his own daughter, with the long hours he kept as a soldier he didn't get to see much of her. Still being stationed here was better than a tour of Iraq or Afghanistan, or god knew where else. He lived off base with his family in Mountain Springs, and his daughter attended Mountain Springs High School. Of course his assignment was completely classified. As far as his family was concerned his job was to sit around guarding an antiquated relic of the cold war, NORAD. And as far as his fellow soldiers in the mountain were concerned he was part of a contingent guarding a 'Deep Space Radar Telemetry' facility on level 28. Yeah right. Nobody bought that, they all knew there was some kind of black op going on down there, but they also knew better than to ask questions. Well, apart from the occasional jibe about working in Stargate Command.

His daughter was in 8th Grade now, he wanted her to do something more with her life than join the military and follow in his footsteps, so, of course, she planned to sign up for the Air Force Academy as soon as she came of age. He sighed. Kids, they never wanted to be like you until you told them not to be. She was a smart girl, and their family wasn't exactly poor, they could afford to send her to college, and she could be a doctor, a physicist, a lawyer, but no, she wanted to fly an F22. He had tried to explain that the F22's were essentially 220 million dollar paperweights that had never seen actual combat, but she would hear none of it.

He rolled his eyes, smiling, he was actually proud of her for that. She had the determination to get what she wanted, to work for it, not to let anyone tell her that she couldn't. She would go far, on whatever path she chose. He couldn't even imagine his own daughter in Lisa's situation. Spirit broken, life shattered.

He glanced down sympathetically at Lisa's eyes through his opaque visor, her piercing blue eyes staring right through him. He was going to do something, he wasn't quite sure what, but he was going to help her, even if it cost him his job.

-x-

Lisa shivered as one of the guards looked at her with its emotionless gold visor, it was barely human. They turned a corner and kept walking, John beside her, the two guards behind her on each side. The elevator was now directly behind them at the end of the corridor. Lisa went into an almost meditative state, just like she had practiced in her room; she could feel the heat within her mind as if it were a little ball. She closed her eyes, focusing on the three nearest cameras. She was rewarded by three puffs of smoke and the smell of burning silicon. So far, so good. The guards noticed something was wrong and raised their guns. Lisa deployed her vectors and the guns were suddenly ripped from their grasp, propelled across the room by the unseen force, but in the process one of the guns went off, propelling a piece of supersonic lead straight through her. The gunshot echoed off the cold unforgiving concrete walls, and it felt to Lisa like someone had punched her in the chest. Her breath caught in her throat.

So it was all for nothing. All her hopes, her dreams, all she had learned, all she had experienced, gone in an instant. There was no pain. That's funny, thought Lisa, I expected it would hurt to die. She was in shock, she supposed, or perhaps there was simply so much pain that her brain couldn't process it. She closed her eyes and smirked, her last thoughts were of a medical diagnosis, what a joke. So much for a moment of clarity.

She touched her chest and, to her confusion, found no bullet hole. She tore her eyes open and looked… She wasn't hit anywhere! The bullet had in fact ricochet off one of her vectors and embedded itself in the wall. She couldn't believe her luck.

John had his back pressed up against the wall, looking, justifiably, terrified. One of the guards reached for its Tazer and Lisa shot out a vector to knock it back. The guard barely moved, but an enormous blood spatter coated the wall behind him. Rather than knock it back, the vector had punched straight through the guard's chest, and out the other side.

Lisa saw the grizzly scene and fell to her knees eyes wide in shock and disbelief. What had she done? Was he dead? Oh god, there was so much blood! She felt sick and retched. The other guard stood back with her hands in the air.

Damnit this wasn't part of the plan! She didn't want to hurt anyone! Why couldn't they just have left her alone? She crawled over to the guard's body and removed his helmet. He was still breathing! But his face was deathly pale. Lisa sobbed and tears began to roll down her face. She opened her mouth to speak, but to her surprise it was the guard who spoke first.

"I-I'm s-sorry" whispered Andrew, struggling for breath

"No!" Lisa sobbed "No, I-I didn't mean to, please- I"

"Stop, this isn't your fault, none of it is," Andrew interrupted, taking sudden pained gasp "I forgive you."

"You can't die!" yelled Lisa "please!"

"Here," grunted Andrew, making a heroic effort to raise his arm and press his security pass into her hand "take this, and run, as far as you can. Access code is 87-… 87531… Now go, I'll be f-fine."

Andrew slumped back and stopped breathing. Lisa couldn't help him and she knew this was probably her only chance. She took the card and ran, down the corridor towards the elevator. Her hands were shaking so much that it took her 4 tries to put the card into the slot. Her heart thumped so hard she thought it was about to burst through her chest, she was sweating and yet she felt cold and clammy. How could this all be happening! She just wanted to get out, to run away, away from everyone, from everything! She entered the code, and the LEDs flashed red. She hit the panel with her hand in desperation.

Lisa tuned around and saw soldiers approaching her from all three directions. She was cornered. She just didn't care anymore, she wanted them all to go away, to erase them. She closed her eyes and swung out with all four of her vectors, no longer even trying to use non-lethal force. She was going to kill them all.

But… but nothing happened. Her vectors wouldn't come out. She willed the corridor to become a flaming inferno, but again, nothing. Not even a spark. She was panicking now, it felt like the very walls were closing in on her. The first soldier reached her.

"No!" she screamed, backing away till her back was against the cool metal of the elevator door "No, get away!"

He grabbed her by the upper arm.

"Get off me!" she shrieked, her tiny fists bouncing harmlessly off his chest armour. His grip was iron clad. She fell limp and allowed them to drag her away. She had lost. Only this time it was more than just her freedom, perhaps her very soul. What had she done?

-x-

Medical staff rushed to Andrew's side, aside from the obvious hole in his chest, his face was starting to turn blue.

"He's not breathing!" said a medic

"I've got a pulse!" yelled another "Bag him!"

A plastic mask was placed over Andrew's face and air was pumped into his chest. He was lifted onto a gurney, and sensors were hooked up.

"Damnit, he's bleeding out!" the doctor swore "prep the OR, get me two units of O+, stat, start a saline IV, wide open, 15 mike's of Dopeamine. Intubate him now."

The medics swarmed around the rapidly moving cart. An IV was inserted into his arm, a tube was put down his airway, a syringe was injected into the IV line.

"Doctor, pulse is rising! 150, 180, Damn, no pulse" yelled a medic "He's in v-tac!"

An alarm sounded from the monitor, rapidly alternating high and low pitch. Andrew's heart was beating so rapidly that it wasn't pumping any blood. They had to shock his heart back into the right rhythm, or at least that was the idea.

"25mg Lidocane," ordered the doctor, "charge to 200 joules!"

There was a high-pitched whine as the defibrillator charged. Lidocane was a channel blocker and would hopefully slow his heart chemically.

"CLEAR!" yelled the doctor, the medic with the breathing bag stepped back.

The doctor applied the paddles and the capacitors discharged with a bang. Andrew's body jumped slightly. The medic immediately resumed pumping the breathing bag. Another medic shook his head, putting his fingers to Andrew's neck. No change. The alarm sounded again.

"Charge to 360!" ordered the doctor, spreading more electrically conductive paste onto the paddles "CLEAR!"

The body jumped more violently this time, the alarm was silenced and replaced by a series of happy sounding beeps. His heart was back in rhythm.

"I've got a pulse!" reported the medic excitedly, "It's weak, and BP is dangerously low, but…"

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

The alarm suddenly changed to the long solid tone that all dreaded to hear. Andrew's heart had completely frozen – the cardiac muscle cells de-polarized making further electrical stimulation pointless. He was clinically dead.

"Asystole" said the medic, confirming it with his fingers on the neck.

"Start compressions, 50mg Atropine, direct cardiac injection," ordered the doctor "damn he's lost too much blood."

The long beep, continued as they reached the Operating Room.

"How long!" snapped the doctor

"Coming up on three minutes," replied the medic, "still no change."

"Scalpel." said the doctor

He took the scalpel and made and incision beneath the 4th rib on the left side.

"Spreader."

He inserted the spreader into the incision and turned the crank, there was a sickening crack as the ribs split apart revealing the unbeating heart. Without hesitation he plunged his hand into the incision and grabbed the heart, preforming internal cardiac massage.

"Give me 75 of Vasopressin," he said "there's still a chance."

The base's other doctor began applying clamps in his abdominal cavity trying to stop the blood loss – they were both just trauma surgeons, but there was no time to call in a specialist gastroenterologist, or a cardiac surgeon. The long beep blared on.

"How long?" asked the surgeon

"Just over 10 minutes." Replied the medic, grimly

The surgeon shone a light into Andrew's eye, but the pupil didn't contract.

"No reaction," he said, he shook his head sadly "cease compressions, he's braindead. Time of death, ten fifteen."

The ventilator was unhooked, and Andrew's chest fell for the last time, as he exhaled his dying breath.

-x-

At midnight, Celia Reilly was awoken by a knock at the door. She woke instantly – like a soldier, she told herself, she was ready for anything. She crept halfway down the stairs to see who could possibly be calling at this hour. Her mother opened the door to reveal her worst nightmare. A soldier in dress uniform, carrying a flag folded into a triangle. The soldier didn't have to say anything; they both knew instantly what the flag meant. Andrew Reilly was dead. Her breath caught in her throat, her knuckles turned white as they clutched the banister in a death grip. Her vision was starting to blur from the unacknowledged tears gathering in her eyes. She hadn't been ready for this, not even close.

Mrs Reilly was in shock.

"No! You – you have the wrong house!" she said, hysterically "my husband can't be dead, he- he worked in deep space radar telemetry, for god's sake!"

The soldier remained hard faced – though you could tell it wasn't easy for her. It was Sam, Andrew's partner from the base – she had been there when he died, staring into the cold dead eyes of that evil little girl.

"There was an accident," explained Sam, she hated to lie, but classified was classified – and she had volunteered for this "one of the cooling manifolds ruptured and started venting Freon gas. Two technicians were overcome by the fumes, and your husband ran in to save them. The manifold exploded and he took a shrapnel wound to the chest. Thanks to his swift actions the technicians survived, but his wounds were too great. He received immediate medical treatment, they did everything they could, but his heart stopped and couldn't be restarted. He died a hero ma'am."

The words tasted bitter and hollow coming out of her mouth. He didn't die in an accident – he was murdered.

Celia was downstairs now, embracing her mother, tears flowing freely. She felt as if her chest had been hollowed out, and could collapse in on itself at any moment. Her world was falling apart – and she didn't know if it would ever be alright again.


	6. Chapter 6

**Well. First off I'd like to adhere to the fanfiction author tradition of apoligising for not updating sooner. So yeah, I'm sorry. Truth is this chapter has been really hard to write - it reached over 9000 words at one point, but it was of poor quality. So why am I updating now, well I'm about to go away for a week to an island with no internet, cellphone coverage, or electricity (Yes I know! Shocking that such a place can exist in this day and age).  
**

**I'm going to give you the first bit of the chapter, which I'm reasonably pleased with and call it chapter 6 - the rest of it will come next week (I hope). So enjoy (hopefully no-one's forgoten the first five chapters yet). Andrew Reilly is to guard Lisa accidentally killed during an escape attempt.** **Celia is Andrew's daughter.  
**

Chapter 6

Bart woke slowly, he felt drained, as if his limbs could no longer move under their own power. He tensed all his muscles, stretching and that broke the hold that sleep had on him somewhat. Groggily, he reached up to rub his eyes.

SMACK!

"Ow," he groaned, something had just hit him in the face.

He looked down at his left arm, and saw that his wrist was encased in a blue fiberglass cast. Yep, that would do it. So he was in hospital then? A clock was ticking. How had he broken his arm? It seemed like something he should be able to remember. He glanced over at the door.

BANG!

Black shapes were coming straight at him. Pure unadulterated terror shot his heart full of adrenalin to the point that he thought it would explode, he gasped in air like a fish, the clock froze – the shapes didn't. He scrabbled back away from the door, but got his feet tangled in the sheets and fell to the floor. He fell onto his broken wrist and, despite the cast, a bolt of pain shot up his arm.

He looked back at the door. The shapes were gone.

Where they really there to begin with? He sobbed and drew his knees in to his chest. What was happening to him? Why couldn't he remember?

-x-

Celia Reilly lay in her bed, emerald green eyes open, searching. In the darkness she found the 'light' button on her watch and pressed it, illuminating her face in a sickly green glow. The digits read '01:44'. She sighed quietly and stuck her arm under the pillow to hide the glowing watch face. For the hundredth time that night she held her breath for a couple seconds, straining her hearing, trying to hear her mother's footsteps. Her mother had started to check on her at night – at odd hours, which Celia supposed was understandable, but nonetheless troublesome. It wasn't that her mother was would be angry, far from it. If she saw that Celia was awake, she would be worried about her, and ask if she was alright.

What a stupid question, of course she wasn't alright, her father was dead! Tomorrow they were going to put him in a hole in the ground. She heard nothing, and slowly exhaled. Just another four and a half hours until she could 'reasonably' get up. Any sooner and her mother would worry that she wasn't sleeping properly.

There wasn't much Celia could do to help her mother, but if she could just keep her from worrying, be there for her when she needed consolation, maybe she could start to make up for the fact that she was responsible for her father's death.

Celia knew it was her fault, the only reason he was in that base was that he wanted to spend more time with her. He'd given up his pilot wings to be a glorified security guard – all because of her selfishness. She'd begged him not to re-deploy, at the time she said it was too dangerous, that she worried about him – but that was just an excuse really. Mostly she just wanted him back for her own selfish reasons. Now he was dead, and she could never forgive herself.

-x-

Marge walked into a gas station, instead of her usual hairstyle she wore her hair down around her shoulders, she was far less conspicuous that way. If you looked closely you could see that there were a few strands of grey interspersed with the blue – she hadn't had a chance to get it coloured in a while.

Behind the counter she could see a wanted poster of herself. This would panic most people, but it was far from the first time for Marge. She sighed and decided to risk it. She was running low on supplies. She picked a few items off the shelves and brought them to the counter. Don't worry, she told herself, there's no way he'll recognise me like this, just pay for the items and get out.

The clerk started scanning the items, before cocking his head to one side.

"Hey," he questioned, pointing "ain't that you on that there wanted poster?"

Drat, thought Marge. She focused for a second, she hated doing this, and looked the clerk straight in the eyes.

"I'm not the woman you're looking for," said Marge, pain throbbing in her temples.

"On second thought," said the clerk, slightly dazed, "you're not the one I'm looking for…"

Marge ignored the pain as best she could.

"You saw that woman two days ago," said Marge, "traveling East."

"You know what, I seen that woman couple days back," responded the clerk, "goin' East."

"After completing this transaction you're going to erase the surveillance tapes for the last hour, you remember nothing from this conversation," instructed Marge, a trickle of blood ran from her nose, and she dabbed it away with a Kleenex.

The clerk blinked. Then looked at her with confusion.

"Sorry 'bout that," said the clerk, "musta' spaced out there for a second. Will that be all?"

"Yeah thanks," said Marge, she had a massive headache now.

Maggie could sense something was wrong and she looked at Marge with concern.

-x-

"What the hell Tolman?" yelled the director, furious, "you said you could control this girl, but instead you've turned her into a mindless killing machine like your SRT pets."

"I seriously doubt she meant to kill him," said John, derisively, "she just doesn't know her own strength. Psychology isn't an exact science."

"Not an exact science – for god sakes a man is dead!" Yelled the Director, "My job is to ensure the safety of the United States from these freaks – the only reason she's still alive is your insistence that she's more valuable to us this way. Now that she's a murderer I'll have to reconsider my decision."

"She didn't mean it. I distinctly heard her say that." Replied John coolly, "besides, she could have wiped out all your men in that hallway, but she decided not to. Just don't kill her yet. We still have much to learn."

"Sometimes I wonder about you Tolman, how can you feel nothing for a man killed right in front of you? He had a family. You can keep your precious test subject," the Director spat, "but from now on her guards will be SRT's with full tactical load-outs."

-x-

Lisa sat in her cell – and this time it really was a cell, bare concrete walls with a single narrow bunk protruding from the wall. There were no bars, the door was solid metal. Lisa sat on the bunk and stared at the wall. To others it might look like she was deep in thought, but in fact that was what she was trying desperately to avoid. Her thoughts frightened her, her dreams were terrifying but so long as she could keep her focus, exclude everything but the wall, she could survive.

It was ridiculous. All she wanted was to be left alone! Was that so hard? It's not like she ever wanted to hurt someone. That was a lie, she admitted to herself, but nonetheless, she'd never act on it. Would have never acted on it, she corrected.

"Murderer." Said Francine

Lisa looked up in shock for a second, then sighed, resting her head back against the wall.

"You're not really here," Lisa stated, "I'm hallucinating again."

Francine grinned, teasing.

"Maybe you're going crazy?" she jabbed, whispering in Lisa's ear.

"Shut up!" yelled Lisa

"Or what," she teased, "you'll kill me too? Go on, you know you want to, killer!"

"I'm not afraid of you anymore," Lisa stated, "I've faced dozens of soldiers, you're nothing but a petty schoolyard bully."

"Yeah, right, that's why you subconscious dragged me up to torment you." whispered Francine, displaying a wit her original sorely lacked "Still I gotta admit, you did a nice job on that soldier, ripped his guts right out. What a fool he was, trying to help you. Pathetic humans, not worthy to kneel upon the ground we tread."

"It was an accident!" yelled Lisa clenching her fists, "I'm still human!"

"We're better than human," whispered Francine, "they're weak and arrogant, they think they can do whatever they want to us, to our family, to our country – we'll show them the error of their ways."

"I would never…" Lisa began

"Bull. You killed that guard then you immediately turned around and tried to kill again – if your powers were working you would have killed them _all_." Francine was incessant, "Don't feel bad – you got your first taste of blood, _and you liked it._"

With that she disappeared smiling like a Cheshire cat.

_To be Continued_...

**Trivia:**

**Did you know? This is the first chapter of this story where nothing has exploded. It's true!**

**Should be a much bigger update for you guys next time - with plenty of explosions :)**

**Oh, and before I forget - you can thank Narfy for beta'ing, she was a great help in getting me re-motivated to actually publish.  
**


	7. Chapter 7

**It's been too long, stuff it, I'm posting the chapter - if it sucks just tell me.**

Chapter 7

Bart picked himself up off the floor, and looked around the room. It looked almost like a hotel, there was a single bed, a desk with a laptop, and, off on the right, an open door leading to an ensuite bathroom. What was notable for its absence was a window. He could see a camera on the wall, it was boxy and expensive looking.

He walked over to the door and tried the handle. Nothing.

"Ah," said a voice, "I see you're awake."

Bart looked at the camera and rolled his eyes.

"Really," he said, "you're going to start with that? Cliché much?"

"We can do this the easy way," said the voice, "Or the hard way."

"Are you kidding me?" Laughed Bart, "Wow, you're so 'mysterious'."

"Fine, I'll start," said Bart, "I'm Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?"

There was a pause for a second as Bart glared at the camera.

"We are the Paranormal Security Agency," said the voice, "and you are being held on suspicion of terrorism under section 12B of the Patriot Act."

Paranormal Security Agency, thought Bart. Why did that sound familiar?

Wait, Paranormal Security Agency, P S… A. Something clicked in his head, the PSA. They were the ones that took Lisa! Then they ran away, split up, then… he woke up here. Memories were still missing.

"You bastards!" Yelled Bart, "How did I get here, what did you do with my sister?"

His fists clenched, his heart started beating a little faster. The clock on the wall started to tick slower.

"Oh," droned the voice, painfully slow, and almost inaudibly low, "do we have your attention now? Yes, we have your sister. Maybe if you co-operate with us we'll let you see her."

-x-

There was a click and the door started to open, Lisa's heart beat so hard her chest hurt, her fists clenched involuntarily. She suppressed the reaction as much as possible. She sat with her knees up on the bunk, her back against the cold concrete wall.

A fully armoured SRT stepped into the room, the strange material of his armour absorbing the light, making him look like a silhouette, despite being lit from the front. Her eyes widened involuntarily.

"So, I guess you're here to kill me," said Lisa, she started calmly, but her voice faltered over the word 'kill'. Her body betrayed her, she couldn't stop shivering, shedding the excess adrenalin in her system. Her skin felt cold.

The soldier remained silent for what felt like an eternity. Of course he would say nothing, thought Lisa. She was used to their mind games, never speaking, never showing their humanity, hiding behind their reflective visors as if their suits could possibly protect them if she chose to attack.

"Not today," he said finally, his voice sounding slightly mechanical from his helmet speakers.

"Y-you can talk?" Lisa questioned, surprised.

"Of course I can," replied the commando, "did you think I was a robot?"

Lisa looked the commando over – his entire body was covered in what appeared to be some sort of powered armour, there were tiny whirring noises whenever he moved (from servo motors, she surmised). He could easily be a robot.

"No, I mean you can talk to me," she clarified, "the other guards weren't allowed – but one of them did when- when I…"

She trailed off, unable to finish the sentence, burying her face in her hands.

"I have no orders not to talk to you," he answered, "I determined that it would be beneficial to the mission to know your state of mind."

He was certainly doing nothing to dissuade her supposed fear that he was a robot.

"And what is your mission?" She asked, not lifting her gaze.

"My mission is to protect you," he answered immediately, "and to ensure your co-operation with senior base personnel."

His mission is to protect me? Thought Lisa, who would order something like that? John? It must be him! Unless this guard is lying to me… Wait a minute, what if co-operating would harm her?

"And if the two conflict?" She questioned.

"Then I am to seek further instruction." He responded swiftly.

"From whom?" she pressed.

"From Dr Tolman." He replied.

"Why him?" she asked, "What is his position within the PSA?"

Lisa found that rather odd – why would Tollman, a scientist, have control of this soldier? It seemed to contradict some of the things he'd been saying… Unless this guard is just trying to mess with me, she though bitterly.

"Dr Tolman is Chief Science Officer and Commander of Special Operations," the commando answered again, surprisingly forthcoming, "as a member of the Special Retrieval Team he is my direct superior – thought he carries no military rank."

"But you are military?" she probed.

"No, technically I'm a PSA Special Agent." He responded freely.

"… why are you telling me all this?" asked Lisa, deeply confused.

"It would make my job a lot easier if we could trust eachother," he said, "If I'm honest with you I hope you can be honest with me."

"How can I trust you?" she said, "You're one of them."

"You can trust me to carry out my mission," he answered, "nothing more, nothing less – there's nothing in my mission that prevents me from speaking with you in confidence."

"Uh yeah, right, you don't NEED to tell them what I've said – they can HEAR us." She said, pointing at a camera, "I may be eight, but I'm not stupid. You can leave now."

"My orders are to keep you safe, not to do as you say," he responded blankly, "besides, you think I haven't put any thought into this? Here."

He touched a button on his chest plate and a tiny armoured compartment popped out. He took out a black cylinder and offered it to Lisa.

"It's an ear piece." He explained.

Lisa looked at it hesitantly, but eventually picked it up and put it into her ear.

Next he produced a curved strip of plastic. Lisa had no idea what this one was.

"It's a throat mike," he instructed, "it conducts vibrations directly from your voicebox, so you don't actually have to talk out loud. Just make sure to cover your mouth, or they can read your lips."

Lisa had no idea how to put it on, but eventually the commando applied it for her. It wrapped around the neck, just tight enough to be slightly uncomfortable.

"Hello Lisa," he said through the earpiece, "my name's Kyle."

-x-

"You mind telling me what the hell that was?" demanded Dr Tolman, "I never ordered you to speak with her."

"Sir, with respect, you didn't order me not to," Responded Kyle, "I w—"

"I didn't order you not to jump of a cliff," Tolman cut him off, "yet somehow you manage to avoid that."

"Sir," Replied Kyle, "I would jump off a cliff if I thought it would help achieve the mission objective sir."

"Captain, are you making a joke?" Asked Tolman, deathly serious.

"Sir," Snapped Kyle, "no, sir."

"Explain yourself." Ordered Tolman.

"Sir, when analysing the mission objectives I determined that communication was beneficial," said Kyle, "sir."

"Captain," asked Tolman, "what do you remember of your career before joining PSA-1?"

"To be honest," Kyle admitted, "not much, although there is this one incident-"

"I see," said Tolman, "interesting."

-x-

_2 Months Later_

Celia Reilly sat on her bed with an Xbox controller. She held it with the light but firm grip of an experienced player, thumbs working in perfect harmony to create smooth fluid motions on the screen. Her brown hair, which she normally kept short, had grown most of the way down her neck. On any given day she could have gotten it cut, but she never did. It hadn't been cut since her father's death. Every day her routine was the same.

She got up at seven, went for a run, got changed, went to school for six hours, came straight back and played video games until she fell asleep. She was a smart kid and she got good grades, but school had never really interested her. Lately though she flat out despised it. She usually hung around with a group of kids whose parents were also in the Air Force. They were very supportive once they heard about her father, but Celia hated it. She didn't want to be treated delicately, she didn't want sympathy, she just wanted everything back the way it was!

She was completing Halo 3 on legendary for the fifth time that week, the games helped. While she was playing she could be so totally immersed that she wouldn't think about anything else. It wasn't that she was pressing the buttons and watching the screen; she could feel the grass crunch beneath 'her' feet, feel the kick of battle rifle into 'her' shoulder as it delivered a three round burst into grunt's head.

_Celia saw a brute off to the left. She spun and fired a quick double tap, first knocking its helmet off; then evacuating its brain through the back of its head. To her right was a trench that she knew from experience contained two heavy turrets, shield bearing jackals, and a brute captain. She was not concerned._

_Priming a plasma grenade she leapt into the fray. Sticking the grenade to the right-hand turret she spun and shot the gunner out of the left one before it detonated, catching a jackal in the blast radius. She switched to frag grenades as she expertly shot another jackal through the gap it its shield, following up with a quick headshot to seal the deal. She tossed the frag behind the shield line of the other three jackals. They just had time to notice the grenade and grunt in surprise before they were thrown forward by the blast, accompanied with sprays of their own purple blood._

_That only left the Captain. The brute fired red bolts from its plasma rifle as it charged. The bolts glanced of Celia's energy shielding, and Celia lined up the shot, but there was no time to perform the necessary double tap to take down the charging ape. Fine with me, thought Celia. She dug in her toes and leapt forward, returning the charge. As they clashed, Celia punched it in the face with her armoured gauntlet, and it took a step back. Seizing the opportunity she struck again and again, never leaving time for it to recover until it finally slumped to the ground, dead._

_She proceeded through the door into the bunker, when to her surprise a grunt suddenly appeared, a plasma grenade stuck to each hand. Kamikaze grunt. She tried to back out of the door, but missed by an inch and hit the doorframe. The grenades detonated, incinerating the grunt, and Celia along with it._

This trust Celia quite rudely back into the real world.

"Gaaaah!" she exclaimed, "Stupid bloody suicide grunts! Every fricken time!"

She reloaded from the checkpoint and played through again. This time shooting the grunt in time, then twice more for good measure.

-x-

"You see," explained the teacher, "if we take the y-axis to be…"

Celia was pretending to listen, but her thoughts were elsewhere. She looked around the classroom and discovered, unsurprisingly, that most other students were doing the same. A group of popular girls at the back of the class were not-so-surreptitiously texting on their phones, while a couple guys were foolishly playing five-finger-skillet with half a pair of scissors. A couple nerds at the front of the class were actually taking notes.

Above the whiteboard were four small holes where a cross had used to be, before the laws regarding religious icons had changed. She rested her head in one hand, gazing blankly at the blackboard.

Celia often wondered about God. Sure, she knew her science, she didn't think for a second that God would be sitting up on a cloud somewhere – but where in the bible did it say that he would be? God had to be extra-dimensional, somehow outside time and space, the unmoved mover. She was stuck in a paradox however – if god was all-powerful, why did people credit him with everything good, and not blame him for anything bad? When she was younger she'd been kicked out of Sunday school for asking too many questions... well that wasn't really fair, really they had 'encouraged her to join the congregation' but it amounted to the same thing. She just couldn't understand how something so important didn't need to be analysed further. That was one of the reasons her father said she shouldn't join the military; she had to question everything.

Why did her father have to die? Where was God then? She had prayed for his safety every night. If God were listening he would have to have ignored her. She sighed and allowed her head to slide slowly down her arm until her cheek was resting on the cool plastic of her desk. It was all part of God's great plan, she though glumly… but what if God's plan isn't in my best interests? What if God is evil, what if-

"Celia," questioned a voice, "Celia, are you paying attention, or daydreaming about F16's again?"

The class laughed, and looked over at her, her ears burned red for a second as she picked up her head off the table. You know what, she thought to herself, stuff it. She stood up at her desk and glared straight the teacher.

"No, sir," said Celia, "I am not paying attention. You were just droning on and on about linear motion equations and I'm afraid I found it so boring that my brain shut itself down to protect me from having to listen to further inanity."

"I…" the teacher stammered.

"Yes," interrupted Celia, "that's just the kind of inarticulate response I would expect from someone who's trying to teach us how to count the grid squares under a curve."

"Alright now that's quite…" the teacher tried to cut her off.

"Oh, is that enough?" she asked, sarcastically, "This subject is the lamest excuse for education that I've ever seen, and I find it insulting that you would expect me to pay attention to such worthless crap. In addition, I'm going to report you to the school board for verbally harassing me. You are an inept teacher and a miserable little man."

"Don't you think you're blowing things a little out of proportion?" asked the teacher, "I can understand things might be a bit tough for you right now."

"Screw," Said Celia, pointing, "you."

The other students stared in amazement as she neatly slid her chair back under her desk, placed her books into her bag, and calmly walked out of the room.

Celia walked down the hall, which was, of course, abnormally silent given that class was in session. She looked calm on the surface, but blood was pounding in her ears and she felt sick to her stomach.

"Hall pass?" asked a hapless seventh grade hall monitor.

"Get lost." She replied shortly.

"I'm going to have to report y…" The hall monitor began.

"If you don't piss off," threatened Celia, "you can report me for punching you in the face."

Although he was a year her junior, the monitor was at least a couple inches taller than Celia.

"As if," laughed the monitor, "you're a girl, and I know karate."

Celia's open palm slammed directly into his sternum and the poor student collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath.

"Karate that you sexist prick." She muttered, stepping over him.

As soon as she struck she knew it was wrong, that she had crossed the line. The other student would be fine of course – he was just winded, maybe a bit bruised. He hadn't been the aggressor though – she had struck first. Her eyes burned with unshed tears. What would father think of me now? She thought bitterly.

She managed to hold back her tears until she reached the bathroom. Her vision blurred as hot tears ran down her face. She turned on the tap and splashed water in her face. Looking up at her reflection she was disgusted. Untidy hair draped across her face, crying like a child. Damnit she was better than that. She took the scissors from her bag and cut off her fringe, violently at first, but getting more methodical as she worked her way to the back, leaving about two inches, just enough to cover her ears. It took her fifteen minutes to finish, and by that time she was calm.

Her course of action was clear. She straightened her clothing, and left the bathroom. She walked directly to the school office. She saw the receptionist, who was mildly surprised to see her. She informed the receptionist that she needed to speak to the principal as soon as possible, and was told to go straight in.

"Miss Reilly?" enquired the principal, "I'm surprised to see you here, is something the matter?"

"Sir," stated Celia, "I have verbally abused and sworn at a teacher, left class without permission and assaulted a younger student without provocation. I will accept whatever punishment you see fit."

"I see." He intoned gravely, "Yes, I had just heard about the fight, you weren't mentioned specifically."

"It wasn't a fight sir," corrected Celia, "he didn't fight back, it was just me."

"And you just attacked him for no apparent reason?" he asked, "I find that hard to believe."

"I was angry." She stated simply.

"Because of something he said?" he asked.

"No, I was angry before that," she replied, "he just happened to be there."

The principle looked down at his desk, rearranging some papers.

"Seeing as this was your first offence under normal circumstances you would receive a three day suspension," he informed, "but given recent events I think I can make an exception – unless of course the boy wants to press matters."

"I don't want special treatment," said Celia, "just give me the suspension."

"No," he replied sternly, "I think you would benefit more from a session with the school counselor."

"I disagree." She said firmly

"Too bad," said the Principal, "rather than suspending you I am scheduling you for three mandatory sessions with the counselor, over the next two weeks."

"Fine," acknowledged Celia, dejectedly, "but my mother doesn't hear a word of this. You understand? She has enough to deal with."

"Alright."

As she exited the office, her phone buzzed in her pocket. Looking around she slid it out and checked the message.

'u need 2 gt out moar - match on Sat usual place 1100, U in?'

Glancing around once again she texted back;

'4 sure'

-x-

"Now Lisa, you have to understand," said Tolman, "if you can't participate in these experiments you are of no use to them – they'll kill you."

Lisa was starting to doubt Tolman, he was always talking about 'they', but he never said who 'they' were. Every experiment they'd tried on her had failed – it seemed like she had completely lost her powers. Despite this, every test came back negative; there was nothing physiologically different now from when she had arrived. Tolman thought the problem was psychosomatic, in other words – she was sub-consciously preventing herself from accessing her powers.

"But I can't do it!" pleaded Lisa, "My powers aren't working!"

As much as she was beginning to doubt Tolman, she was under no illusions that he was bluffing about them killing her. Kyle had told her as much - and quite chillingly revealed that he would probably be the one to get the order.

"I know, I'm going to try and help you with that." Said Tolman, "We've noticed that your power often manifests itself when you are angry, or in pain. These electrodes will administer an electric shock – hopefully inducing a pyrokinetic episode."

She didn't really want to help them, but she did want to stay alive – she wanted this to work as much as they did.

"O-ok," Lisa whimpered.

-x-

Kyle watched as electrodes were strapped to Lisa's arms. His mission was to protect her, and to ensure her co-operation. How could he complete his mission? What was the definition of 'protect', did pain count, psychological trauma, or just physical injury? He should do nothing, he decided, that was the best way to fulfill both objectives.

"Start it at fifty joules," ordered Tolman, "Lisa, I want you to concentrate on that tray of woodchips."

A technician flicked a switch on a panel. A buzzing sound could be heard, Lisa's arm went rigid and she gritted her teeth in pain as tears gathered in her eyes. It made Kyle uneasy for some reason, probably due to his conflicting objectives, he reasoned. The woodchips remained unsinged.

"All right then," said John, "let's try something a little more powerful. One fifty joules. You okay Lisa?"

"It hurts," she whimpered, "please, can we stop?"

"Hang in there," he comforted, "we'll stop as soon as we get a result."

The tech, adjusted a dial and flipped the switch again. This time Lisa screamed out loud. Kyle remembered another girl, blond hair, blue eyes. She was screaming too. Who was she? A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead, stinging his eye and he adjusted his suit's climate control. What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he focus on the mission? Should he be protecting Lisa, is that what this meant?

The technician looked a little rattled, though Kyle was surprised to note that John showed almost no reaction. Lisa was crying now, she said nothing.

"Three hundred joules," instructed John.

"Are you sure?" asked the technician, "That could kill her!"

"Just do it," John ordered, "she'll be fine."

The technician sighed and shook his head, before adjusting the dial and flicking the switch once more. The entire right side of Lisa's body convulsed and she fell to the floor. She would have screamed but her jaw was clenched shut, and her diaphragm frozen.

When the current was turned off she just sobbed quietly. John finished writing on a clipboard, paying her no attention.

"Take her back to her cell," said John, dismissively, "she's useless to us now, we'll just have to try again with her brother."

A space-man approached to help Lisa to her feet. Lisa waved him off and stood up on her own. She ripped the electrodes from her arm, revealing red circles where they had burned her skin. She was glaring at John.

"I thought you were my friend!" she yelled, "But you just wanted to study me! Why? What's your problem?"

"Response to anger," muttered John, writing the clipboard, "negative. Why is she still here? Take her to her cell."

Lisa complied with the guard, walking to the door on her own. Mid-stride she collapsed.

Kyle was instantly by her side. He turned her onto her back and placed a finger onto her chest, his gauntlet reading the electrical impulses from her skin.

"She's got no pulse," informed Kyle, "the electrical shocks must have overtaxed her heart."

He proceeded to remove a pair of defibrillator pads from the chest of his armour and apply them to her chest.

"Get a medical team in here." Kyle ordered.

"That won't be necessary," ordered John, "leave her be, just get someone to prep the OR for an autopsy – we were going to do one anyway."

Behind the visor, Kyle's face was twisted in agony. The mission! He couldn't help her or she wouldn't be co-operating, but he couldn't not help her, he had to protect her. He struggled to hold back a wave of nausea and closed his eyes. He had to protect, but must obey senior personnel, can't, but have to, no, but-

His eyes snapped open, suddenly his choice was clear. Protect Lisa, ensure her co-operation. She couldn't co-operate if she was dead, nor would letting her die count as protecting her.

"I'm afraid I can't do that John." said Kyle calmly. He activated the de-fibrillator pads and Lisa's body convulsed.

"Stop them." John commanded.

The space man guards approached, brandishing their P90's. Cobra quick, Kyle drew his pistol and shot them both in the head without looking up. John ran out of the room. More security would be on their way, Kyle knew, but for now he had to save Lisa. He shocked her again, and to his relief her heart re-started. She was still unconscious, but they had to move now. He took a shot of ephedrine from his chest pack and injected her with half of it.

Two seconds later she responded, she sat bolt upright and yelled out, flailing her arms wildly. Kyle grabbed her wrists, preventing her from breaking her hands on his armour.

"Don't worry," ordered Kyle "I'm getting you out of here. Keep low, stay behind me."

With that Kyle raised his P90 and opened the door. He swept the corridor, but there found no-one.

"Clear," he called out, "stay close."

They moved up the corridor until they came to a door marked 'armoury'. Thankfully his code still worked. Once inside he swapped his P90 for an M240 SAW (light machine gun), clipping two extra ammo boxes to his belt. He then took a Barret .50 calibre anti-tank rifle and four clips of armour piercing rounds. He attached the weapon to his back plate. He strapped two MP5's to his thigh plates and took some additional grenades to supplement his tactical supply. For a normal soldier this would be far too many weapons to reasonably carry, but with his power armour they may as well have been feathers.

Turning to Lisa, he gave her a flak-jacket, though it was far too big and went down past her knees, and pushed a helmet onto her head. Lisa looked up at him questioningly.

"Ok, it's going to be scary out there. People are going to shoot at us," explained Kyle, "but I will get you out of here safely. I just need you to stay calm and follow me."

He took a 9mm handgun out of a box and offered it to Lisa.

"Have you ever fired a gun before?" asked Kyle.

"I'm eight!" exclaimed Lisa, looking at the gun as if it were poisoned, "who in their right mind would give me a gun?"

"It's simple," said Kyle, miming firing the gun at the wall, with his finger outside the trigger guard, "point, exhale, and squeeze. Just don't point it at yourself, or at me."

"I'm not going to shoot anyone!" said Lisa indignantly.

"Suit yourself," shrugged Kyle, putting the gun back in its box, "it won't stop them from shooting you."

Without warning the armoury door slid open. Kyle brought his M240 to bear, and reduced the four soldiers beyond into bullet riddled corpses. These weren't spacemen, they were in standard combat uniforms. At this range their Kevlar vests did nothing against the high velocity rounds.

"Come on," said Kyle, "there's more where they came from, we have to get moving."

Lisa seemed to be frozen in shock.

"Y-you killed them." She murmured.

"Yes and if we don't get out of here we'll be joining them," said Kyle impatiently, wielding the enormous gun one handed as he pulled Lisa with the other hand.

They continued down the corridor, staying close to the wall, but not too close, so as to avoid the majority of ricochets, which Kyle knew would deflect almost parallel to the wall. Kyle was in his element now. This was exactly the type of operation he was trained for, extraction of an asset from a heavily guarded facility, hence 'Special Retrieval Team'.

As they approached an intersection, Kyle's hardware-enhanced hearing picked up a couple of soft 'clicks'. He didn't need the suit's analysis software to tell him that it was the sound of the safety being switched off on an M16. An ambush. He motioned for Lisa to stay where she was, using a flat palm, rather than the traditional military signal. He then put his elbow up to his face, telling her to cover her eyes.

Kyle pulled the pin on a flashbang grenade, and held it for a couple seconds, before tossing it into the air. He ran after it, there was no need to shield himself from the blast; his visor would polarise to protect him. It detonated in mid-air, a split second before he entered the ambush. He saw six soldiers, three on each side. With an MP5 in each hand he fired three shots with each, his armour system compensating for the recoil. By the time the first bullet casing hit the ground, it was over. The other five cases followed ringing like tiny bells as they struck the hard concrete floor.

-x-

Lisa had her eyes covered with the crook of her elbow as the flash-bang detonated; she hadn't thought to cover her ears.

It was so loud that it wasn't so much a sound as much as a sudden, intense pain stabbing into her ears. She could actually feel the pressure wave on her skin! Her ears rang so loudly that the ringing itself was deafening. What the hell was going on? She kept her eyes closed, just in case.

A hand touched her shoulder and she tore her eyes open, it was Kyle. He was probably saying something, but she couldn't hear anything so she just nodded and followed him. Then she spotted the bodies laying on the floor, each with a bullet hole near the center of the head.

-x-

Their path was blocked, this time by another SRT. Kyle immediately grabbed Lisa by the collar and pressed her into cover behind one of the support beams that encircled the corridor. He faced down the SRT, looking like a mirror image. What words passed between them Lisa would never know, but she could have sworn she saw Kyle's chin drop ever so slightly, in sadness.

-x-

"Kyle!" Exclaimed the SRT over radio, "What have you done? You have betrayed us all!"

"I have no choice but to execute the mission," Kyle explained, remorsefully, "as you well understand, Mathew."

"That can't be!" Mathew yelled, "Who would order such a mission?"

"Dr Tolman," Kyle said with disgust, "he ordered me to protect Lisa, then tried to kill her."

"Damn him!" Mathew cursed, "He ordered me to kill Lisa. Are there no loopholes in your orders?"

"None." Kyle shook his head, "They are quite clear."

-x-

Kyle was the first to pull the trigger. A spray of bullets emanated from his M240, only to 'ping' off his opponent's armour with seemingly no effect. For his part Mathew dashed at a forty-five degree angle to Kyle, firing his woefully inadequate P90 the 9mm rounds, specifically designed to avoid over-penetration, barely scratched the titanium plates of Kyle's armour.

Kyle mirrored his opponent's move, running on the parallel 45. As they neared close combat range Kyle saw his opponent bend his knees in preparation for at tackle, with inhuman speed Kyle swung his foot upwards, connecting with Mathew's chin. His head stopped dead while his lower body continued with momentum, laying him out flat on his back. Kyle brought his foot down on his neck pinning him to the floor. Mathew grabbed his pistol and raised it to point at Lisa but Kyle was too fast. He stomped on Mathew's hand, the shots went low and Lisa took them in her vest. Throwing aside his M240, Kyle grabbed the .50 calibre rifle from his magnetic backplate, putting the tip of the barrel directly onto the SRT's visor.

There was no surrender; SRT's were incapable of it. The Mathew continued fighting until the moment Kyle pulled the trigger; the 'bulletproof' visor was no match for the heavy AP round at this range. The Mathew's hand flopped back to the ground as the visor shattered, the heavy pistol falling from his hand.

Kyle took his foot away from Mathew's neck and knelt down next to the body, picking up his discarded M240.

"I'm sorry my friend." He mumbled, quickly checking the M240 for damage.

He got up and started walking towards Lisa. To Lisa's horror and disbelief, the 'body' stirred, and started to get up. It couldn't be! He'd been shot in the face! The SRT began to walk towards them, taking shuffling steps, like a zombie, all the while emitting a soft beeping noise.

Kyle turned kicked the SRT square in the chest, sending it flying back through the air. He immediately knelt down and 'hugged' Lisa, protecting her with his body.

WHUMP!

The dead SRT exploded. Rather than a Hollywood fiery explosion, this was a C4 blast wave. There was no fireball whatsoever, just a devastating pressure wave, followed by a hail of deadly shrapnel.

Of course Mathew was already dead, but the suit was autonomous enough to carry out a last ditch effort to complete the mission.

-x-

Twenty minutes Lisa and Kyle finally made their escape. As they emerged from the escape hatch, Lisa's eyes were assaulted with raw, unfiltered sunlight for the first time in months. Her eyeballs ached as colours forced their way in through her squinted eyes, the plethora of green colours from the trees cutting sharply into seemingly endless azure sky. Staring up into it was almost vertigo inducing, and a smile came unbidden to her lips. She wanted nothing more than to lay back and gaze up at the puffy white clouds.

"We made it!" Exclaimed Lisa, turning to face Kyle.

Kyle's visor exploded. Fragments of glass sprayed out around a ragged hole and he slumped to the ground without so much as a whimper.

-x-

Two thousand feet away Samantha's hand closed around the still smoking .50 calibre casing that had just ejected from her rifle. The casing was white with a green stripe warning that the round was DU, Depleted Uranium. You couldn't just leave radioactive shell casings for hikers to find now could you?

She put her eye back to the scope, exhaled slowly and sighted her next target, a smile crossing her lips. There was no way Lisa's vectors could deflect a round this heavy. This was for Andrew.

"Nighty-nite," she muttered, condescending, "…you little bitch."

She pulled the trigger.

Inside the weapon a tiny piece of metal moved a fraction of an inch, releasing the driving spring which knocked the firing pin into the primer at the end of the bullet casing. The primer detonated, igniting the powder which rapidly oxidised to form a gas 8000 times the powder's original volume. The expanding gas pushed the bullet down the barrel, accelerating it at over 180G's to reach twice the speed of sound in 1/300th of a second, over the space of thirty two inches.

The bullet created a double shockwave as it flew towards the target, before striking Lisa directly in the temple. Lisa too, slumped to the ground, but Samantha waited until she saw blood coming from the wound before she finally took her eye away from the scope.

She sighed. After all that she felt sorry for the kid. Now that Lisa was dead she could allow herself that luxury. In the whole scheme of things it wasn't a bad way to go. Quick and painless; she wouldn't even have seen it coming.

Hell, maybe it was their fault that she turned into a psychopath. Sam had been there at the beginning, when she had first woken up. She had looked so innocent laying there, but she hadn't been awake more than a few seconds before Sam threatened to blow her brains out. At least she was at peace now. She couldn't hurt anyone, and no-one could hurt her.

-x-

Lisa's vectors hadn't managed to stop the bullet, but they had slowed it down. The bullet struck her head hard enough to draw a lot of blood, but it didn't penetrate. Despite this the concussive force was still great enough to knock her out cold.

She awoke with a throbbing headache.

"Nyu?" she questioned.

Nyu? She thought to herself, that's not even a word, god, how hard did I hit my head? Come to think of it, what hit me? A rock? A tree branch? Where am I anyway? Right, let's start which what I know, my name is… Oh my god, I can't remember!

Wait, 'Nyu', that must be my name, why else would I be saying it?

Ok, my name is Nyu, I've just suffered a concussion and I can't remember where I am. She stood up, shakily at first, but she regained her balance after a few seconds. Looking around she saw the Kyle's body and she ran.

-x-

Nyu could hear someone running towards her and she instinctively dropped to her belly. Ahead of her was a small clearing. The footsteps were getting louder. She heard another sound too, a repeated kind of 'psh-THOONK!' off in the distance. Silenced weapons of some kind maybe?

A masked figure in military fatigues burst into view, sprinting flat out, as if trying to escape something. A second later she found out what. There were three sickening THWAK's as rounds hit them in the back, spraying blood in plumes. The figure fell to the ground and lay still. Another masked soldier stepped out from where they had been hiding in the trees, took something from the body and immediately ran off. This angered Nyu unexpectedly. Had they no respect for human life?

She cautiously began to approach the body – it was a bit morbid, but it seemed like her best chance at trying to understand what the heck was going on here. She was very careful to look around for more soldiers, so careful in fact that she neglected to watch the body. Had she been watching she would have noticed that the 'body' was standing up, and watching her.

-x-

Celia Reilly could barely believe her eyes. Emerging from the forest in front of her was a young girl, probably 8 or 9, wearing a far-too-big mud-caked flack-jacket over a torn, blood stained hospital gown, barefoot, and pale with fear – as if she had seen a ghost.

"Are you OK?" Called Celia, her voice somewhat muffled by the facemask.

The girl recoiled, as if she was about to bolt. Alright stupid question, thought Celia. She realised she might look quite menacing to a child with her mask on, so she removed her face mask and held up her empty palms.

"Look, see?" Celia called out again, "I'm not going to hurt you."

What on earth had this girl been through? Her body armour was military grade – top of the line, not even commercially available. From a cursory inspection Celia could see that the armour had actually taken a couple of hits! Who in their right mind would shoot at a child? Even beyond that, how did she end up in a hospital gown, barefoot in the middle of the forest? Clearly she was in some kind of serious trouble. There was a niggling voice in her head asking her – do you really want to get involved in this?

She dismissed it immediately. I'm a soldier, defender of those who cannot defend themselves.

"Y-you're dead-" the girl choked.

Celia was confused for a second. Oh, right, she remembered, her shirt was stained red.

"It's just paint see?" She fired her own paintball gun at a nearby tree, painting it blue, "It's make believe."

During the conversation she had been edging closer to the girl. Celia didn't know quite what to do in this situation, so she reached out and put a hand on the girl's shoulder in what she hoped was a comforting gesture.

"Are you alright?" She asked gently, "what happened to you?"

Without warning the girl grabbed Celia around the waist and burst into tears.


End file.
